
Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle - ajaviaad
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/08/gates-foundation-backed-program-will-soon-be-issuing-home-testing-kits-for-covid-19-in-seattle/
======
joe_the_user
Korea is doing drive-through testing with results available in three days. [1]
That the US is still at the level of doing testing in a private and haphazard
fashion is effectively criminal and seems likely to have a serious impact
fairly soon. The US had a difficult time even testing all the workers at the
nursing home in Washington where 11 people died.[2]

[1] [https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-south-korea-uses-
driv...](https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-south-korea-uses-drive-thru-
stations-to-test-for-covid-19-11950955)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/coronavirus-nursing-
ho...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/coronavirus-nursing-home.html)

~~~
djsumdog
I think part of it may be intentional. No matter what, and the end, you will
get accurate numbers for death, and there's not much that can be done for
viral infections, other than cancelling large events and other means of
transmission. Some can't be avoided though (elections are happening in the
US).

Could the CDC intentionally be avoiding increasing testing to avoid panic? If
the numbers are to be believed, no matter what we'll see a sizable number of
infected this year and risk losing many of the elderly.

~~~
peter303
No, the CDC created a defective first kit, delaying EFFECTIVE national testing
a month. Congress should investigate the reason for this failure. We'd be far
ahead if we bought test from Germany or Korea.

NPR had a story about genomics lab that repurposed some of it research
equipment to provide some testing resources. Apparently about 70 other labs,
including Gate's, did similar and provide backup resources. But a month delay
seriously damaged the US response.

~~~
claudeganon
The US also explicitly rejected the working German tests, adopted by the WHO,
and continued pursuing their own kit, even after they failed the first go
around, putting ourselves even further behind:

> But German researchers were devising their own test, which was quickly
> adopted by the World Health Organization for distribution around the world.

After the C.D.C.’s version turned out to be flawed, the agency continued to
pursue it, despite the fact that another diagnostic test was already in wide
use.

With F.D.A. approval, the agency could simply have embraced the test used by
the W.H.O., Dr. Mina said. The government could do so even now.

“It’s just a very American approach to say, ‘We’re the U.S., the major U.S.
public health lab, and we’re going to not follow the leader,’” Dr. Mina said.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-
testin...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testing-
cdc.html)

------
excerionsforte
Low cost home testing kits can go beyond SARS-COV2 and track other diseases
all from the safety of your home. Why go to the hospital where you could
possibly be infected by other people with infectious diseases or infect the
people around you.

Personally, if it is low cost enough that I don't need to use health insurance
then I am all for it. Health insurance is good enough until surprise they
don't want to cover you or you get surprise bills in the mail from the
hospital.

Gates Foundation is absolutely forward thinking. I like it a lot.

~~~
aplummer
> Health insurance is good enough until surprise they don't want to cover you
> or you get surprise bills in the mail from the hospital.

Constantly amazed this can be a thing in a first world country. Can this
actually happen?

~~~
jlarocco
It happens all the time here; it's ridiculous.

At my company's last benefits meeting (where they go over the yearly changes
to our insurance coverage) a coworker described a situation where they had a
surgery at an in network (accepted by our insurance) hospital, with in network
surgeons and nurses, but was assigned an out of network anesthesiologist
without his knowledge, and later got a giant bill for it (well over $1000,
IIRC).

Even when a person tries to follow all the rules, they find a way to screw
you.

~~~
craftinator
Maybe before a surgery, gather all of the hospital staff who are going to
attend, and record a video while saying "I do not consent to working with
anyone from out of network. If you are an out of network physician, I do not
consent to be your patient." That ought to be interesting in court if they
bill you. Really, the onus of responsibility is between your insurance company
and the hospital (i.e. paying and billing party). If they fail, it needs to be
something resolved between them. Because that's their fucking job.

~~~
Ididntdothis
You clearly haven't dealt with these guys. The hospital can charge whatever it
feels like and the insurance pays whatever it feels like. And the patient sits
in the middle and has to figure it out.

~~~
craftinator
I have dealt with them, once, and I got the pokey end of the stick. I honestly
don't know what would work, but I think operating on someone who has specified
that they don't consent is kinda the definition of criminal; I think Mayhem
would be the official charge.

~~~
Ididntdothis
You would think that repeatedly charging people for procedures that never have
been performed would also be viewed as criminal but they get away with it all
the time.

------
Gatsky
This is really important, especially in countries where flu season is coming.

At the same time, I’ve been reading papers in top journals about various
clever technologies to do rapid (ie <60 minutes) detection of pathogens for
years. The latest was using crispr [1]. None of them seem to have left the
lab, PCR is still it.

Final point, nanopore sequencers are ideal for rapid home testing, and you get
the actual sequence. They are a bit too expensive unfortunately.

[https://nanoporetech.com/products/minion](https://nanoporetech.com/products/minion)

[1]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00601-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00601-3)

~~~
john_minsk
How expensive are they? I don't see the price behind your link

------
koenigdavidmj
We need some states to just start defying the CDC and doing whatever testing
they deem necessary. With media backlash and sympathetic juries, no court case
will actually succeed if the feds try to charge them with anything, and this
is a life-or-death matter. Italy is a first world nation doing testing, and
even they are swamped—what will we be in a week?

------
abductee_hg
is anybody surprised?

availability seems not the be the problem, you can order them since 3 weeks
ago from alibaba:
[https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product...](https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=covid+19+test)

or, if you prefer from italy: [https://www.screenitalia.it/test-coronavirus-
covid-19/](https://www.screenitalia.it/test-coronavirus-covid-19/)

the problem here seems to be of an organisational nature...

------
peter303
Numerous articles about $4000 fees if test done at ER.

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/02/why-are-we-
bein...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/02/why-are-we-being-
charged-surprise-bills-coronavirus-testing-spark-calls-government)

The new fed law and my state make the test itself free, but dont address the
high service charge at some medical centers. Sick people might be reluctant to
test as early as they should.

------
appleflaxen
the irony is that if these are not already FDA-approved devices, then selling
them (and even giving them, I think) to consumers will be illegal.

it seems clear that the regulations would be harming the public interest and
should not be enforced, but you could imagine a scenario where there was a
politician with a political grudge against a liberal city like Seattle.

~~~
tomcam
Not anymore. That restriction has been removed [PDF link]:

[https://www.fda.gov/media/135659/download](https://www.fda.gov/media/135659/download)

~~~
spectramax
This is great news. We can learn from this pandemic that during Public
Emergencies, humanity needs to come together and defeat our threat -
democracies are thought of as a "giant ship" that's impossible to move during
emergencies and cannot compete with authoritarian regimes such as China where
a drone escorts you back to your own house; this kind of exclusionary and
temporary exceptions backed by scientific consensus and truth (which is often
clouded by the fog of authoritarian stronghold on censorship), we can be as
nimble and come out more educated than ever.

Emergency powers in the western democracies (North America and Europe) are an
important aspect of governance and should be routined examined for
effectiveness (mock exercises and simulations), efficiency and combating the
threat during the most dire times. Coronavirus is not an existential threat
but as a thought exercise we can imagine one that has a serious chance of
killing 50% of the earth population. Or some serious evil on planet is
threatening human existence on earth - incoming asteriod or terrorist
organization with AI capabilities. I sound like an alarmist, I know, but the
point of this thought exercise is not to induce panic but build a better
governance system that can protect the public without giving up civil
liberties.

------
SubiculumCode
I am scheduled to give a talk at large science conference in Seattle this May.
I have a feeling its going to get canceled though. :/

~~~
DangerousPie
I would be pretty surprised if this was going ahead at this point.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Yeah there is talk of conducting the conference via streaming. Ha!

------
mgleason_3
Seattle's lucky to have a benefactor, though it may highlight yet again the
stark differences between the have's (in this case a rich tech companies) and
have not's - everyone else.

------
animalnewbie
I don't expect much from trump but I'm mad at Newsom at this point. Why can't
he do something about Cali?

------
claudeganon
From what I’ve seen, a lot of the false negatives with these tests comes from
the fact they require two swabs (nose and throat) that must be performed
thoroughly/correctly in order to get a viable sample. I wonder how home
testing will impact efficacy.

~~~
ckdarby
Source please, couldn't find this information anywhere saying this.

~~~
claudeganon
It’s a long standing problem with these kind of rapid diagnostics for
respiratory illnesses:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rapid-flu-tests-
only-50-to-70-p...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rapid-flu-tests-
only-50-to-70-percent-accurate-cdc-says/)

Doing two swabs helps mitigate this, as does comparing anal and oral swabs.
Here’s a more thorough breakdown:

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2020.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2020.1729071)

~~~
dboreham
Pretty sure even I could tell the difference between an anal swab and a nasal
swab.

~~~
mercer
Maybe people are confused because both their noses and butts smell?

------
magma17
are they iot devices that send a positive to authorities and get you in
quarantine?

------
fancyfredbot
This is very admirable of Bill, but it seems odd that the world's biggest
economy is reliant on hand-outs to keep its citizens healthy.

~~~
offmycloud
To me, it seems odd that government would have a monopoly on anything in
health care. Non-profits can play a very valuable role in exposing
inefficiencies in large bureaucracies.

~~~
fancyfredbot
I don't think I implied governments should have a monopoly over health care?
There are many other options. For example, I'm wondering why isn't health
insurance covering testing? It'd save them money if it helped limit the spread
of disease.

~~~
orblivion
It would make sense if everybody were insured. However they really would want
everyone to get tested, not just their customers, for the reason you cited. If
anything, they should be incentivized to make their own foundation to give it
away, like Bill Gates is. Car insurance companies have pooled together to form
the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for crash tests. So such things can
come about.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Starve the beast is working as intended. Mission accomplished.

~~~
sitkack
What the parent is referencing is the Republican strategy to defund government
services, and then point to how ineffective they are, thus providing
justification for privatization.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/amid-coronavirus-
out...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/amid-coronavirus-outbreak-
trump-proposes-slashing-cdc-budget/)

~~~
zaroth
Except these agencies have never had so much funding as they do now.

Its hard to put a finger on exactly why they seem entirely incapable of
fulfilling their central mission during this crisis. Why were the test kits
botched? Why was testing so artificially limited? Why do the primers seem
poorly designed? Why does the contact tracing seem to be so behind the ball?
Etc.

I think political finger pointing is easy and maybe even satisfying but not
helpful or particularly enlightening.

~~~
nl
Politico has a good piece[1], but with no real answers.

 _But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President
Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead
begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed
by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays._

This seems to give some kind of explanation of what was going on:

 _But there were additional problems with the administration’s approach to
testing, according to experts and former officials. From the start, the White
House focused on containment, trusting that a limited ban on travel to and
from China could somehow force a fast-moving virus to stop cold when it hit
the Chinese border. But, while containment might have helped buy the U.S. some
time, without aggressive domestic surveillance through testing, it was an
incomplete strategy._

Except that doesn't really explain why the CDC didn't do it's job. Surely the
White House wasn't actively _stopping_ disease surveillance?

[1] [https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-
testing...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-
failure-123166)

~~~
zaroth
The CDC just _" had"_ to make their own test probably due to a combination of
regulations and NIH syndrome (no pun intended). It wouldn't have been such an
issue if they didn't _fail_ so spectacularly at designing a test.

From what I gather, designing these things is not actually rocket science,
more like grad-level work. The fact that local labs throughout the country
were ready to go with their own self-made testing kits supports this.

The focus on containment by the White House IMO was totally appropriate. When
you have zero local cases, that's what you focus on... in order to buy you
time to prepare, shore up supplies and disaster plans, and distribute test
kits. Containment (i.e. closing borders) is the _political_ part of the
process, so the Administration focused on that while the scientists are busy
designing and distributing the test kits. In theory...

~~~
nl
Containment is absolutely appropriate - and can and should be done within the
country as well as border restrictions.

But it doesn't seem there has been much focus on that at all. Containment
requires rapid large scale testing. The US doesn't seem at all prepared for
that.

------
bshoemaker
Our government is led by idiots, this is the result

~~~
m0zg
Hate to break it to you, but nearly all governments are led by idiots who
don't know anything and don't care to know. Becoming a non-idiot is hard, time
consuming work that's incompatible with politics needed to get elected into a
public office.

At least our executive branch had enough common sense to ban flights from
China on Jan 31st (and was panned by the "free press" and Democrats in
congress for it at the time). Had they not, we'd be dealing with tens of
thousands of infections and thousands of deaths by now, as exemplified by
Italy.

~~~
DangerousPie
And yet somehow most other countries have still managed to come up with a
significantly more competent response. Germany is tracing contacts of all
cases and has capabilities to test 20,000 people per day. How many is the US
testing right now? And that's a country with 1/3 the population.

There are probably thousands of infections in the country already, we just
don't know it yet.

~~~
m0zg
> Germany

Now try Italy or South Korea. Germany still has twice as many cases as the US,
and 7.5x as many cases per million of population (12.1 vs 1.6 CPM in the US).
Proximity to Italy doesn't do them any favors. To their credit though, they
have zero deaths.

If you order the stats by cases per million, the US comes in 40th, so
containment doesn't suck too bad, compared to others. By deaths it's the 5th
though - the main cluster basically took out a bunch of very old, medically
problematic folks at a senior care facility. As the officials from the
facility said, about 7 people die there per month under the normal
circumstances, but this month they were additionally hit with the coronavirus.
Bad luck.

~~~
palmy
The issue is that Germany is testing ferociously while in the US this is not
the case. It's therefore likely that the US numbers are severely
underestimated, while Germany's are much closer to their true value.

Worth noting that Germany not having any deaths despite such a large number of
cases can also indicate that they discover the infection very early, and
similarly the number of US deaths can indicate late discovery.

------
fortran77
Bill Gates is a great man.

------
pneill
What’s the point of testing? There is no treatment. So knowing you have it or
not is pointless. If you have it, and it’s serious, you’ll seek medical
attention regardless of whether you know it or not.

When you see the ridiculous on hand sanitizer and toilet paper, even if there
was an over the counter version, you wouldn’t be able to find one in the
store.

~~~
chippy
"Whats the point of testing if you are a healthy 20 year old caring with 85
year olds"

This sums up the silicon valley mindset for EVERYTHING. If you find it hard to
understand what I am meaning the be worried.

~~~
pneill
So you’re just going to test yourself constantly?

If you experience symptoms for any illness and you care for seniors, you
should remove yourself from care.

No need to test.

~~~
im3w1l
Don't people have low level symptoms basically all the time? Like if you add
up all the times your throat feels a little bit sore, or nose is a little bit
stuffed or you cough a few times a day or you have a bit of a headache or you
feel a little bit lacking in energy... That should add up to like half a year.

So I'm not sure if what you are proposing is realistic.

~~~
dboreham
Symptoms are fever and a dry cough (no runny nose, no sneezing). At least for
me and my family that happens basically never.

------
glofish
If anything sets a bad precedent, citizens starting testing themselves and
each other, what could possibly go wrong (sarcasm)...

Should we test for flu, cold as well? All other diseases? Should you only be
allowed to be somewhere if you tested yourself within the last N hours ... etc
.. because that is the next step, looking at each other with suspicion.

When did you last test yourself? Did you not test yourself? Why not? What are
you hiding? What kind of citizen are you? Get back there and start testing
yourself.

Are you going to test yourself every day? When you sneeze? In the morning, in
the evening?

Stop living in fear. Nothing will happen to you.

~~~
legionof7
If I could test myself continuously, I would. Why would you not?

~~~
glofish
because it never works like that, never that simple, there are always bigger
costs

in the end this will be used against you and others

next thing you know you are not allowed on a bus if you haven't tested
yourself today

~~~
scarejunba
This is mindless hysteria. And I suspect you know it. On the other hand, maybe
you do, in fact, believe it. Let's make a good faith attempt to test how truly
we believe in our predictions. I predict that the Gates Foundation permitting
home testing in Seattle will not result in Seattle's public transit system
only permitting COVID-19 tested individuals by the end of 2020. In order to
back that, I will put up $1000 at even odds. Reply here to take me up on it.

What's your prediction and will you back it like I did?

~~~
glofish
Hysteria: emotional excess.

Not sure why you assume "hysteria" on my side. My opinion could be wrong, but
that does not make it a hysteria. Isn't the fear of COVID more a hysteria?

As for your bet - it is overly specific - there could be thousands of similar,
equally negative outcomes that would not be in Seattle, or a bus company, etc
yet could all be triggered the same way.

I would be most worried of people that want to infect others about finding out
anonymously that they are infectious.

~~~
scarejunba
The Gates Foundation is only issuing home testing kits in Seattle so it's hard
to argue for elsewhere. However, I'm comfortable negotiating the terms. What
are yours? I'd like to have a conclusion within a reasonable time so no bet
lasting 50 years or anything, but otherwise, let's hear your offer.

EDIT: Due to old comments, I'm rate-limited on this thread so I actually
cannot respond (sorry!). I'm interested specifically in the statement about
the bus.

~~~
glofish
my offer is that in two years we look back at this and a reasonable majority
of health professionals will say:

"you know that home testing by Gates was not such a good idea, overall it
caused more harm than good"

My view is that is a dangerous idea to have untrained, panick people decide if
they are sick or not. Too many things can and will go wrong.

