Yale does socialist medicine with new covid test

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, August 20th, 2020 - 15 comments
Categories: covid-19, science - Tags: , ,

Double good news here.

Andrew M. Slavitt, a former Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (ex-Obama health care head), tweeted this last week when Yale scientists announced they had FDA Emergency Use Authorization for their new covid test. Not only have Yale developed the test but they’ve developed a system for making the test easily available and cheap.

Lots of other good stuff in the whole thread, there’s an unrolled version here.

Slavitt says,

It’s a perfect turn of the road to see if profits or our country are more important.

It does seem remarkable given what is happening in the US. Good on Yale for developing this model and sidestepping Big Pharma and the government interests that favour commerce over people.

This is another example of what we can do when it really matters, and how TINA can be retired if we want to. It also strikes me as what happens when people have their hearts in the right place and I hope this creates some ripple effect within science and university communities.

In a neat US/NZ connection, one of the lead scientists on the project is Kiwi Dr Anne Wiley.

From what I can tell the test will complement rather than replace other kinds of testing, in a more tools in the toolbox kind of way. Tests are to be rolled out over the US over the next few weeks, it’s unclear if/when this will be available internationally.

I saw one tweet this morning saying the new test should be used at New Zealand airports, which I hope means we should integrate the new tech with the same degree of caution and thoughtfulness we’ve applied to the rest of our response. As opposed to say calls to open borders because we have this amazing new test. The test appears to have a similar failure rate as the current swab test, and like all tech will need to be applied in real life situations that are far from perfect. There are no panaceas here and we are still in a marathon not a sprint.

Edit: Epidemiologist, Immunologist and Physician at Harvard School of Public Health & Harvard Med School, Michael Mina, critiques the new test and points to overhype on a number of counts,

15 comments on “Yale does socialist medicine with new covid test ”

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  1. Stuart Munro 1
    20 August 2020 at 11:58 am

    Interesting – so there are now loosely three test formats – the so-called 'brainscrape', the serum test, and the saliva test.

    Certainly a cheap rapid result test is very desirable, even if it comes with slightly reduced sensitivity, it could expedite contact tracing by rapidly finding some of the infected.

    Mina is of the view that automated labs are required to yield the fast turnaround and low cost outcome Yale is claiming.

    I wonder what we might have had out of America had there been a decent president.

    • weka 1.1
      20 August 2020 at 12:26 pm

      it's possible that best benefits will be for countries with lower wage costs than the US or NZ. I'd like to see a critique of both tweet threads. The Mina one was a bit technical for me.

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    20 August 2020 at 11:59 am

    "This is another example of what we can do when it really matters, and how TINA can be retired if we want to. It also strikes me as what happens when people have their hearts in the right place and I hope this creates some ripple effect within science and university communities."

    Very good point.

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    20 August 2020 at 12:06 pm

    Yes, unusual to see a university swimming upstream against the capitalist flow, but perhaps they used an economist as consultant? If you tithe via licensing you only need a small portion from each sale to get a profit from volume (supermarkets do the latter bit).

    Whatever, the altruism is heart-warming. Looks like we're entering a phase of mass trialling of this and the other contenders.

  4. Barfly 4
    20 August 2020 at 1:00 pm

    "Official data shows 88-94%. If you assume 90% sensitivity, this is the best accuracy (sensitivity) of any saliva test. (It also means if you took it twice, for $20, you would have 99% accuracy)."

    2 tests 98.56 % 3 tests 99.83% 4 tests 99.98% (all based on the 88%)

    • Andre 4.1
      20 August 2020 at 1:06 pm

      That's if you assume errors are always random and unrelated.

      But if a test came back negative because of some reason like, say, the infection has more or less localised to the lungs so there's not enough viral material in saliva to detect, then there will be repeated false negative results at much higher rates.

  5. Siobhan 5
    20 August 2020 at 2:12 pm

    Andy Slavitts an interesting fellow…shame Medicare for all is simply not on the horizon..in fact in some regards Bidens stand is even more conservative than Hilarys…despite MFA's remarkably favorable rating amongst Americans..despite the Covid, and despite those poor deluded souls who think the DNC is even pretending to accommodate the Progressive agenda.

    https://pnhp.org/news/andy-slavitt-gives-his-candid-views-on-single-payer/

  6. Tony Veitch (not etc.) 6
    20 August 2020 at 2:34 pm

    I think that proper treatment of covid is the way to go. I don’t think we should be pinning all our hopes on a vaccine. This includes early detection. Covid is likely to become endemic, so the best way to deal with it (until the mythical vaccine turns up) is by swift detection and early treatment.

    Chris Martensen of Peak Prosperity (I know some on here don’t rate him) suggests the best treatment of covid – in the early stages – is HCQ + Ivermectin + zinc. This is within a couple of days of symptoms appearing and well before hospitalisation.

    Because of the highly politicised and profit driven medical system in the US, Anthony Faucci is pushing a drug which costs and arm and a leg, whereas HCQ is out of patent and can be prescribed for a few cents.

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2-QVBQi48RRQTD4Jhxu8w

    • Incognito 6.1
      20 August 2020 at 3:18 pm

      YouTube clip (53 min) from somebody with some largely irrelevant qualifications (e.g. no MD) vs. official Treatment Guidelines (205 pages) from NIH.

      https://files.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/guidelines/covid19treatmentguidelines.pdf

      • Tony Veitch (not etc.) 6.1.1
        20 August 2020 at 3:45 pm

        Ah well, Incognito, I have no skin in the game. Time will tell whether Martensen is correct or not.

        He seems pretty convincing to me, but hell, what do I know?

        • Incognito 6.1.1.1
          20 August 2020 at 3:52 pm

          Until you need treatment, you may not have skin in the game. It is about looking at the available information at this point in time and making an informed decision or judgment call on what might and might not work, on what might have and not have risk associated with it. It is not about who’s right or wrong. It is about critically examining and reviewing the available data and information. In addition, I take in written information better than visual presentation. I believe GPs are free to form their own judgements and make their own decisions, but I wonder how many would look at YouTube clips for guidance.

  7. RedBaronCV 7
    20 August 2020 at 2:36 pm

    There was an interesting article in The Atlantic on deploying either this saliva test or something similar. Think it's the same bloke. Coupled with group testing – testing a pile of samples together it looks to be a good backstop to check on overall community health quickly and cheaply.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/how-to-test-every-american-for-covid-19-every-day/615217/

  8. rawsharkyeshe 8
    20 August 2020 at 3:05 pm

    Beware: if Trump and Kushner can't make dollars from this, watch for it to be railroaded into a siding somehow.

  9. barry 9
    20 August 2020 at 4:32 pm

    I presume this is a LAMP based process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop-mediated_isothermal_amplification)

    These are traditionally not as accurate as PCR and saliva may not contain as much (or any) virus.

    It will be good if it works as well as promised, and it may still be useful in obviating the need for lockdown, even if not.

  10. Gosman 10
    21 August 2020 at 8:15 am

    Umm…. I thought Yale was a private institution.