So pilots only need to get tested if they travel or go in crowded, indoor spaces - good to know!

If you travel in the back with full seats and someone near you seems to have symptoms. Sure. If you hang out in crowds where there is some reason you stay in close contact with someone for over fifteen minutes and they display symptoms. Sure.

Hot tip: You don't catch covid by walking casually by someone. You have to be in their space for a long period of time.

So, how often should I be tested? Maybe three times a week for the foreseeable future?

The usual suspects have their minds blown once again. There’s still a pandemic going on that’s why they want to test. Until everyone is vaccinated or there’s herd immunity developed, and the pandemic is called by people smarter than you, it’s still dangerous for everyone. If by now you still need this to be explained to you then there’s nothing can be done to help you out.

Thanks, Knobcrk.

It’s your position that we should have widespread testing, no matter how unreliable the test is.

My spouse had obvious symptoms and tested negative (tested positive a few days later). I had close contact with her, no symptoms, but was still directed to quarantine for 24 days despite multiple negative PCR tests over that period (she was symptomatic <24 hours).

So what’s the point of testing? What triggers an asymptomatic person being tested (with no known close contact; btw, six feet and 15 min are rather arbitrary)? Despite disciplined mask wear, social distancing, and frequent hand washing, I had a bad chest cold two weeks ago and tested negative twice. Did I have to quarantine? According to my employer, yes, 10 days because the tests could have been false negatives. No one else in my house got the cold, btw.

You're in the lockdown camp. We get it, widespread testing is justified by your position. The fact is, however, the tests are so unreliable that the outcome is the same-quarantine. Bob had the sniffles but tested negative. However, to be safe, you should quarantine for 14 days even though you’re asymptomatic. This level of hysteria is happening at my employer and my kids’ school.

Im all for testing if we can agree to trust the results, and not quarantine those that have no symptoms, despite close contacts. Close contact doesn’t mean you contract CV.

Id rather they focus on vaccine priority for pilots, FAS, and air traffic controllers. Unbelievable that entire ARTCCs are still being shut down but air traffic controllers and pilots can't get a vaccine in most states.

But which would you rather have as priority, pilots or teachers, and why?

We are currently seeing about 60,000 new cases a day out of a population of 330 million. The CDC is saying that - barring severe infections requiring hospitalization - self isolation for ten days is adequate quarantine for those testing positive for COVID. So we are looking at a point prevalence rate for those capable of infecting us with COVID of (60,000x10)/330 million, or roughly .18% (and dropping) of people who might CONCEIVABLY be capable of infecting others, although after the first five days the risk of contagion goes down considerably, so we are really only talking about about half that many people, roughly 0.09% of the population (and dropping).



https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...635-0/fulltext

So crank the numbers. Testing 330 million people is going to give you 3.3 million false positives and 500,000 true positives while missing 100,000 positives. That’s the first day. After that false positives pretty much stay the same while true positives go down (which they are doing anyway).

And you are going to have to do that DAILY until you’ve had enough. And quarantining all those false positives for ten days, requiring 33 million person-days of quarantine for EVERY time you test the population until you reach steady state (in 10 days) when you will have 33 million UNinfected people (and their close contacts) in quarantine if the current guidelines are followed. And this will require DAILY testing.

At what point do even the most fearful people decide this just isn’t worth doing?

Until they develop a vax that can penetrate a tin foil hat, there won't be much accomplished.

True, I’m waiting for Knobcrk1 or Minepza or another poster to utter “science” to defend mass testing and I may have to say something worthy of Rickair777 banning me.