gzsg

The safe reopening of the U.S. economy depends on establishing a robust system of testing, tracing, and self-isolation to quickly contain new outbreaks. Yesterday, researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Ragon Institute, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced what promises to be a big step toward deploying millions of accurate, rapid, and cheap coronavirus tests using CRISPR technology.

The researchers have created molecular tags that latch onto sections of viral genes and emit a signal when their presence is detected. The new STOPCovid test enables the detection of as few as 100 copies of the coronavirus in a sample. "As a result, the STOPCovid test allows for rapid, accurate, and highly sensitive detection of Covid-19 that can be conducted outside clinical laboratory settings," note the researchers. The test initially used standard nasal swab samples, but preliminary data suggest that it will work using much more easily collected saliva samples.

The research team is talking with manufacturers to further simplify and produce the test. The New York Times reports that they estimate that the materials for one test would cost about six dollars now and would fall even further when mass-produced. "The ability to test for Covid-19 at home, or even in pharmacies or places of employment, could be a game-changer for getting people safely back to work and into their communities," said team member Feng Zhang in the press release.

President Trump and his circle of close aides are protected from COVID-19 infection by a moat of rapid coronavirus testing through their access to the Abbott ID NOW COVID-19 assay that can report results in as little as five minutes. The Abbott test is an automated real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology that detects the presence of specific nucleic aides that make up the virus' genome. Currently, samples must be collected and processed by trained health care workers. The company has already shipped 1.4 million tests and is ramping production to 2 million tests per month by June. The wide-scale deployment of much more easily administered STOPCovid tests would provide moats of protection for the rest of us.

gzsg

New CRISPR Coronavirus Test Could Be a Pandemic 'Game-Changer'

Cheap accurate testing would enable the safe reopening of the U.S. economy.

RONALD BAILEY | 5.6.2020 3:00 PM

Fourpaw

If this is what it takes then fine.

I went to one Home Depot yesterday in which I waited 45 minutes to get in the store to get some things
Today I walked right into a different Home Depot. I asked the employee why one would restrict and one wouldn’t. They had no idea,

Once Americans wake up and realize the little to no consistencies, we will see change. The problem is getting the person wearing gloves, a mask, 10lbs of sanitizer and stepping 50ft a away from me during my dog walk....to believe this too.

Time will tell. But I will be there with a giant “I told you so” sign once it’s done.

deltabound

Here’s what we “know”.

This virus kills the old, the weak, and the fat. And precious few of them, all things considered. (Yes, there are outliers. Sigh. Which is why they’re called “outliers”)

Wait six months to distribute magic insta-check machines (or 5, or 10, or 15 minutes), available to everyone, then what? The global economy is over. Government cheese for everyone, or at least the well connected. While it lasts.

The DNA of this thing has been mapped for 3 months. We don’t really know how it’s transmitted, how it progresses, how to avoid it, or how to treat it. Social distancing was a concept for the GHW Bush admin, picked up by President O, and has ZERO basis in science. 3 feet? Why not 6? Why not 10? Nobody knows ****e.

Hate to be a buzzkill on a “positive” story, but who cares if there’s a magic testing machine? 50 different states and a federal government will have to negotiate every single business interaction (interstate AND intrastate) regarding freedom of movement, lockdowns, denial of service, etc. Plus court challenges. That’s never going to happen.

Open it all up. Give real information to people about their likelihood of dying and let them decide if they want to risk it or hide in their homes until a true game changer (cure/vaccine) happens...if ever. Which it probably won’t.

Old people die. The +70 crowd is on borrowed time. The “don’t judge me cuz’ I’m fat” crowd may deserve social tolerance (I guess), but everyone’s life choices catch up with them. In the long run, no one gets away with anything.

But hey, if all testing, all the time, everywhere gets the airlines up and running, I’m for it. Pays the bills, puts food on the table.

BobZ

Old. Check. Weak. Check. Fat. Oh crap im screwed.

Time to go on disability.

Phil Laschio

I pointed out the clerk was wearing a mask and gloves and behind plexiglass, yet the store was not wiping down the credit card machine /pin pad between users. Watched three people touch it with their grubby little digits before I could check out. How is this “reducing the spread” exactly?

GogglesPisano

They should have just put us neurotic, frequent-handwashing germaphobes in charge of all of this.

deltabound

Not going to start a new thread for this, but it was most interesting.

From "Newsweek" (apparently, they still exist).

Military isn't going to accept new recruits who've tested positive for COVID19.

I'm non-military. But I'd be most curious to hear military guys/gals/trans chime in on this: does this seem odd?

What does US Gov/MIL know about COVID19 and it's long term effects that it would discourage/deny future heroes from joining up?

Coronavirus Survivors Permanently discouraged from joining US military.

crazyjaydawg

The military looks at every new accession as a liability for disability payments in the future. COVID-19 is a huge unknown and until they know more, they don’t want people to get into the Mil and then get out within a couple years and claim disability for “respiratory damage”.

Right now the VA is overwhelmed with claims from all the damn Burn Pits overseas, they don’t want to risk more people than they need to.

Also every recruiter knows the saying, “if it ain’t on paper, the it’s vapor.” If a person really wanted to join, then they may not be able to find documentation of a positive result.

Also everything is waiverable, until it’s not, and vice versa.

full of luv

It's probably just a "no known outcome" because the military is generally risk averse to anything medical that is not just A-OK on the way in. I suspect with the economy taking a govt-induced coma period, they assume they will have enough perfectly healthy recruits.

I have read that many who develop a severe case of COVID19 are left with some very effected lungs and take a significant time (if ever) to fully recover back to normal. Also, as I understand it, COVID19 is the reaction to the Novel Coronavirus (IE the disease state) so many youth have probably been exposed to the virus but did not develop enough symptoms to go to a doctor and be declared COVID19, so by recognizing only the disease state, your omitting the sickest of the recruits.