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More free COVID tests!


MickinMD

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With all the money sent to give out free tests, the government is blowing the chance to really find out how many people have or had COVID.

During the State of the Union Address, President Biden said people can order 4 more free tests beginning next week.

My 4 tests arrived just yesterday.  I wish they'd send antibody tests, too, so you can see if you've already had it.

On both tests, there could be a serial number unique to each test and the test would reveal a unique code number, based on the test's serial number, that is revealed if the test is positive.  You would be prompted, on positive tests, to call a government number and report the serial and code numbers to confirm you were positive.  That would give the government a great database on how many have actually had or have COVID.

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Just now, MickinMD said:

My 4 tests arrived just yesterday.  I wish they'd send antibody tests, too, so you can see if you've already had it.

Sadly, I think you are WAY overoptimistic that an "average" person is going to figure out the difference if sent two types of COVID tests.  WAY overestimating.

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21 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Sadly, I think you are WAY overoptimistic that an "average" person is going to figure out the difference if sent two types of COVID tests.  WAY overestimating.

It ain't about who had it.  It's about a convenient way to see if you have it so you can take action to stop the spread. Knowing numbers is important.  Stopping the spread of the virus in importanter.

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3 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

It ain't about who had it.  It's about a convenient way to see if you have it so you can take action to stop the spread. Knowing numbers is important.  Stopping the spread of the virus in importanter.

I agree.  Need to keep pressure on to get everyone who is willing to be vaccinated, vaccinated.  I know I have had it.  I know I should get boosted.  But with numbers plummetting and restrictions being lifted, it is hard to impart that message, especially when there  were only 144 new cases reported in a population of close to 3 million here yesterday

image.png.2b8ac171af971d0253a9ffdd49183ccb.png

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9 minutes ago, jsharrwick said:

I agree.  Need to keep pressure on to get everyone who is willing to be vaccinated, vaccinated.  I know I have had it.  I know I should get boosted.  But with numbers plummetting and restrictions being lifted, it is hard to impart that message, especially when there  were only 144 new cases reported in a population of close to 3 million here yesterday

image.png.2b8ac171af971d0253a9ffdd49183ccb.png

That is cases reported, so it could be vastly different from that actual numbers.   Seeing that the omicron variants play nicer (unless it doesn't, for you), most folks just tough it out after spreading it here and there for a bit, and it never gets recorded.  Just think of your office, for instance, and then multiply that by shit-tons of other offices like yours, and think how those cases were probably very underreported or not at all recorded.

Maybe boost if you are gonna be nut to butt with crowds of people a lot, but waiting until fall might not be a bad idea, as their could be an improved booster by then.

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19 minutes ago, jsharrwick said:

Need to keep pressure on to get everyone who is willing to be vaccinated, vaccinated.  I know I have had it.

Sadly, with vaccine hesitancy, many use a line like "Well, I know I had it. I felt awful back in November, so I have natural immunity now." despite not having actually been tested as positive.  

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Just now, Razors Edge said:

Sadly, with vaccine hesitancy, many use a line like "Well, I know I had it. I felt awful back in November, so I have natural immunity now." despite not having actually been tested as positive.  

Yep.  My son is/was one of those.  I cannot believe he came from my loins.

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54 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

“I have natural immunity now." despite not having actually been tested as positive.  

Again, it doesn’t matter. You’d be losing immunity from an infection from the fall around this time, anyway. Better to message that vaccinations and boosters are best way to not get it again or to moderate any future illness effects. 

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1 hour ago, MickinMD said:

if the test is positive.  You would be prompted, on positive tests, to call a government number and report the serial and code numbers to confirm you were positive.  That would give the government a great database on how many have actually had or have COVID.

oh that'll be accurate

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1 hour ago, Randomguy said:

Maybe boost if you are gonna be nut to butt with crowds of people a lot, but waiting until fall might not be a bad idea, as their could be an improved booster by then.

If you’re at all concerned about the effects of getting any strain of COVID, I would boost now, if eligible. Delaying for the what if seems illogical if you are concerned about the what is currently. Your best protection from all current variants is vaccine plus booster.

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Just now, Prophet Zacharia said:

If you’re at all concerned about the effects of getting any strain of COVID, I would boost now, if eligible. Delaying for the what if seems illogical if you are concerned about the what is currently. Your best protection from all current variants is vaccine plus booster.

I gotta wait until May.  6 months is still the gap for Moderna as far as I know.

The doctor's office asked if I wanted a flu shot last week. I was like..."isn't flu season over by now?"  Sure, the shingles vax seems likely for me to get, but not this year's flu shot.  Or is that one constantly updated?

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4 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I gotta wait until May.  6 months is still the gap for Moderna as far as I know.

The doctor's office asked if I wanted a flu shot last week. I was like..."isn't flu season over by now?"  Sure, the shingles vax seems likely for me to get, but not this year's flu shot.  Or is that one constantly updated?

By updated, do you mean a current chip implant or an older chip implant? I'm pretty sure they can do remote updates now if you have reliable wifi.

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20 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

...since people LOVE calling the government and giving them info :D  How could that go wrong?

While it is true that many antivaxxers cannot read enough to decipher content or a phone number to call, most of the other folks taking the self-test are doing it to confirm a positive or a negative for their own purposes and won't act on providing additional information.  Think about it, you call a number, get a phone tree, then start entering a bunch of information, it is too much effort or annoyance and fraught with all kinds of silliness.  Or you could call in and say you are your neighbor, just for fun, and that you have covid and herpes and PRI, plus you are a bedwetter.

Here is what really happens if you self-test and get a positive:

The antivaxxers will go to bookface and declare a false positive and the fraud test is unreliable (especially if you don't do it right) and how they are gonna go out and eat at Applebee's tonight because "this shit ain't real anyway".  When they wake up from too many budweisers or somesuch and are all hung over, they will text into work and say they are positive and can't come in but still want to get paid.    Other folks will go on bookface and chirp and chirp some virtue signalling crap about how they are happy they caught the positive before they could spread it and are gonna quarantine for a year.  Nobody will call a number to report results, though.

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10 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

While it is true that many antivaxxers cannot read enough to decipher content or a phone number to call, most of the other folks taking the self-test are doing it to confirm a positive or a negative for their own purposes and won't act on providing additional information.  Think about it, you call a number, get a phone tree, then start entering a bunch of information, it is too much effort or annoyance and fraught with all kinds of silliness.  Or you could call in and say you are your neighbor, just for fun, and that you have covid and herpes and PRI, plus you are a bedwetter.

Here is what really happens if you self-test and get a positive:

The antivaxxers will go to bookface and declare a false positive and the fraud test is unreliable (especially if you don't do it right) and how they are gonna go out and eat at Applebee's tonight because "this shit ain't real anyway".  When they wake up from too many budweisers or somesuch and are all hung over, they will text into work and say they are positive and can't come in but still want to get paid.    Other folks will go on bookface and chirp and chirp some virtue signalling crap about how they are happy they caught the positive before they could spread it and are gonna quarantine for a year.  Nobody will call a number to report results, though.

you need to use the words jab and tracking chip more.

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1 hour ago, jsharrwick said:

I agree.  Need to keep pressure on to get everyone who is willing to be vaccinated, vaccinated.  I know I have had it.  I know I should get boosted.  But with numbers plummetting and restrictions being lifted, it is hard to impart that message, especially when there  were only 144 new cases reported in a population of close to 3 million here yesterday

image.png.2b8ac171af971d0253a9ffdd49183ccb.png

and yet, deaths don't look all that terrific.

image.png

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2 hours ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

Again, it doesn’t matter. You’d be losing immunity from an infection from the fall around this time, anyway. Better to message that vaccinations and boosters are best way to not get it again or to moderate any future illness effects. 

I agree. Now that I have covid, it's heightened awareness at least I got triple vaxxed so my symptoms so far, are mild. So it's motivation to be vaxxed later.  I hate to think those who are only partially or not-vaxxed, what they could experience later.  or what they could with bad outcome, expose others because they didn't take vaccination.

The free testing at home (not totally bad though not always reliable) and no need to report online if you got covid, now leaves us not having a sense of magnitude of infection. If it's mild, it isn't horrible, but now we're losing some data to help  health authorities, for the future in planning vaccination frequency, etc.

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4 hours ago, MickinMD said:

With all the money sent to give out free tests, the government is blowing the chance to really find out how many people have or had COVID.

During the State of the Union Address, President Biden said people can order 4 more free tests beginning next week.

My 4 tests arrived just yesterday.  I wish they'd send antibody tests, too, so you can see if you've already had it.

On both tests, there could be a serial number unique to each test and the test would reveal a unique code number, based on the test's serial number, that is revealed if the test is positive.  You would be prompted, on positive tests, to call a government number and report the serial and code numbers to confirm you were positive.  That would give the government a great database on how many have actually had or have COVID.

I don't think that I am the wacko paranoid type, but there's no way in hell that I am reporting something like that about myself which will be tracked by the government by name.

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7 hours ago, Kzoo said:

It ain't about who had it.  It's about a convenient way to see if you have it so you can take action to stop the spread. Knowing numbers is important.  Stopping the spread of the virus in importanter.

Not if you believe everyone is going to get it anyway.  Then you can get away with not giving a shit.

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