Developing a serological test; and contact tracing
Developing a serological test for COVID-19 is important for many reasons. One is that we can identify people who had the virus and don’t even know it, and are now immune and run no risk and can go back out into the world.
Another is that at least some of these people might be used as blood donors to boost the immunity or aid the recovery of others, as sometimes happened with ebola.
Such a test is being developed:
Serological assays are of critical importance to determine seroprevalence in a given population, define previous exposure and identify highly reactive human donors for the generation of convalescent serum as therapeutic. Sensitive and specific identification of coronavirus SARS-Cov-2 antibody titers will also support screening of health care workers to identify those who are already immune and can be deployed to care for infected patients minimizing the risk of viral spread to colleagues and other patients.
And this is unrelated, but it’s one of the ways South Korea got a handle on its COVID-19: tracing possible contacts through cell phone data. Israel is doing it:
In a statement posted to Facebook, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: “We will dramatically increase the ability to locate and quarantine those who have been infected. Today, we started using digital technology to locate people who have been in contact with those stricken by the Corona. We will inform these people that they must go into quarantine for 14 days. These are expected to be large – even very large – numbers and we will announce this in the coming days. Going into quarantine will not be a recommendation but a requirement and we will enforce it without compromise. This is a critical step in slowing the spread of the epidemic.”
There are glaringly obvious privacy and liberty concerns and dangers, and they are very very serious. But if the alternative we seem to be heading towards at warp speed is to effectively put everyone in quarantine (lockdown) and severely undermine the economy, cell phone tracing may actually involve less of a violation of liberty. The people who have been diagnosed are not identified by name, but the people who have been in contact with them are located and quarantined, probably at home.
The US is supposedly considering something like this. One other problem:
That will mean citizens’ smartphones being not just a tool of mass surveillance but also a conduit for targeted containment — raising questions about the impact such intrusive measures might have on people’s willingness to carry mobile devices everywhere they go, even during a pandemic.
I’m not sure this depends on willingness to carry phones outside, though. Is it geographic location that’s involved, or whether a person talks or texts another person who ended up infected?
The problem with reading so many stories is that you remember tidbits but forget the source which then becomes hard to find a few days later.
But, I think that S.Korea was successful with contact tracking because Patient #31 was able to tell them that she was at a hospital (car accident), dining with a friend and attending several church services. They had lots of contact to trace, but they were confined in a small area with names readily available. S. Korea is starting to show a slight increase of cases, perhaps in other locations.
MIT already has one… i have mentioned it a few times..
That’s certainly good.
The Surgeon Gen. asked for blood donations yesterday, in anticipation of coming needs.
Can our medically trained commenters answer an idle question here: would testing most or all newly donated blood looking for nCov19 antibodies be 1) feasible, 2) useful data gathering, 3) cost effective or prohibitive, and finally 4) whatever other probative questions you can see that I am missing?
Regarding potential cellular tracking…
Yikes!
sdferr: I am reading that the Dutch are doing this now.
Good stuff on serological testing. I’ll be surprised if it happens soon. I hope I’m wrong about that.
The good thing about the smartphone tracking is that the NSA already has all the data on where all the smartphones have been over the last few years. They just need to run the database queries and ignore the constitution. Not that anybody cares about the last point. (Except Neo!)
sdferr:
I won’t know sure about the specific health screening questions that the Red Cross asks donors until 3/25/20 (platelet donation) but I do know they are taking oral temperatures of all prospective donors and excluding anyone with an elevated temperature. I expect they will ask if you feel you have been exposed or had symptoms of exposure.
A routine question asks for donor approval for testing your donation for medical research purposes. So maybe they are doing serological testing already? I’ll ask.
Rufus T. Firefly:
For quite a few years now, I’ve thought that we have the equivalent of the telescreen with the cell phone – and credit cards, and Google – only now it’s a voluntary telescreen that we purchase ourselves.
Thanks both KyndllG and om.
I gave blood today. They took my temperature before they let me into the room and then again before the actual donation, there was hand sanitizer everywhere, they did ask questions about exposure, travel to places like Italy and China, people were seated six feet apart while waiting, etc. — but most of the activity didn’t seem that far from normal. The place was thronged, apparently because there aren’t many drives going on right now. Many drives are being cancelled because the places where they would normally be held, like schools and libraries, are closed. There’s a bad shortage — if anybody out there can give and can find a drive that’s open, this wouldn’t be a bad time to do it.
Smart TVs May Be Watching And Listening In Your Home, FBI Warns
While you’re watching your smart TV — which connects through the internet to give access to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu — the TV may be watching back as it collects data to help advertisers better target their ads and make programming suggestions based on what you’ve already watched.
The FBI warns that many smart TV owners don’t take the same protective steps they do to secure and defend their computers. But they should, the agency says.
—————————
now if we only had a corner to go into where the TV cant see us and we could hide what we do from it, it would be ok.. how many homes do the chinese, russians, and computer geeks with fetish or boredom get watched?
Weeping Angel, not to be confused with Dr Who was the CIA program to turn TV sets into spying centers..
The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.
you can be sure other countries are doing the same..
makes ya all warm and fuzzy inside over 5G, eh?
you do know about using wifi as radar to see into buildings, right?
Household Radar Can See Through Walls and Knows How You’re Feeling
Modern wireless tech isn’t just for communications. It can also sense a person’s breathing and heart rate, even gauge emotions
https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/household-radar-can-see-through-walls-and-knows-how-youre-feeling
but why talk about this stuff i bring up…
there is tons more… but i got tired of trying
its not tin hat stuff… its real tech…
i like to do AI projects and that tech is very suitable to be improved incredibly by using CNN networks… not the tv channel, a type of deep learning AI
Why do we need social distancing and shut-downs?
To slow the spread while the medical geeks find the cures.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/20/doctor-my-company-is-3-to-4-weeks-from-developing-a-therapy-to-neutralize-coronavirus/
Artfldgr – there is a lot of chatter about 5G radiation being able to cause flu like symptoms, do you know if there is any validity to that?
As someone who’s worked on software dealing with cellphone networks, let me tell you this:
your cellphone can be traced in near real time by your carrier to within a rather small distance if needed.
The way this works is a side effect of the way the cellphone stays in contact with its network.
It does this by polling for nearby cell towers every few minutes (or even more frequently now, as modern towers have a shorter range).
These polling signals are recorded as a matter of course by the network, and use d by the network to know which tower or towers are in contact with your phone and can thus be used if you are called or receive a push notification.
These records are also stored with the actual call records (and no, these don’t contain the call itself, only metadata like which phones are involved and timestamps for start- and endtimes of the call) and can be used to triangulate your phone’s position if required.
Typically in most countries doing this requires a court order for obvious reasons.
My guess is the Israeli are using this data for contact tracing of people testing positive.
They might also have other data, like data from geolocation services built into most phones these days and used to transmit location specific information to the phone in near real time (those handy traffic information messages and nearby public transport services your phone presents you for example).
I guess this too would require a court order.
@Solrist all those ‘rumours’ are just conspiracy theories put up by the usual suspects.
The energies and frequencies involves are way too low.
They’re just an extension of the ‘cellphones cause cancer’ and ‘cell phone towers are mind control devices’ claims, none of which have any basis in reality.
JTW I’m aware that’s the prevailing opinion among sensible people who do not believe in the ridiculous propositions that psychopathic people would conspire for advantage – I mean, as if, right? So you needn’t try to set me straight there. Definitely curious to hear from people who harbor the outlandish absurd idea that immoral and very smart, resourceful people have now and then teamed up to play some minor, meager role in the shaping of our world and its rulership. (Kooky, crazy, I know – as if!) It’s just for entertainment, don’t worry your pretty little head.
I don’t think the cellphone tracking is feasible as it can’t properly judge if a person carrying a phone in the infected’s vicinity fits the definition they are now using of exposed, which is now being within 6 feet of someone infected for at least 15 minutes. I also don’t know how accurate the location services are–do you want to quarantine someone who happened to be on the other side of the street or in an immediately adjacent building as the person being tracked?
I agree with cellasendo. At best consumer GPS is accurate to within a few meters. Even if that number is 1 or 2 meters. Then contact between two smartphones could mean a nearness of 2 or 4 meters. I suppose officials could generate a list of all those cases, and then winnow it down via interviews and testing.
Solrist:
You have to make a chapeau from 0.001 inch thick aluminum foil, shiny side out. You must also align the chapeau at all times to the geomagnetic pole and account for inclination and declination in your local area as well as compensate for any magnetic anomalies. Such a chapeau is 100% effective. Don’t worry, your pretty little head will be safe, although protecting your lungs is another matter.
Aaron Ginn: “Evidence Over Hysteria — Covid19”
https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894
Apologies if this has already been linked, as I haven’t looked to see. Here’s his precis:
JTW:
I assume a person just has to have the cell phone on for the geographic tracking to occur? You don’t have to have the location function activated?
Neo,
Where I thought you were going with this was to encourage the government and private companies to develop, preferably by tomorrow, a mass-market test for antibodies. Then they should start testing immediately and repeatedly to determine what proportion of the population possesses such antibodies and what the trends look like. At the diagnostic level the value of this test would be immense: medical personnel with antibodies could be prioritized to care for vulnerable populations; men and women could be gradually reintroduced to the labor force; some schools could reopen; and the economy could start to function again. How long can we stay in lockdown and remain a viable society and economy?
Neo,
JTW is talking about old fashioned signal triangulation, updated with better software and technology perhaps. That works on all cell phones, like the antique flip phone I use, even ones without location services. I think its accuracy is much worse than a few meters.
It has been proven that in some cases, you can turn off the smartphone location services for a period of time; and during that time the phone stores all the location data in a file. As soon as you turn on the location services, all of the old data is uploaded to Apple or Samsung or Alphabet. Presumably the NSA as well.
Trump just re-tweeted about a “promising” treatment:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1241354642417577986
“Hydroxychloroquine & Azithromycin are highly effective in treating Covid-19.
The patients enrolled in the study showed complete viral eradication around the 5th day of treatment.”
Treatment is actually even MORE important than testing and tracing. Usually, testing and tracing are easier, and are important to stop the spread.
If the treatment is as good as a vaccine, or better, and the treatment is low cost and the treatment has already been approved, for instance for prior diseases, then … problem hugely reduced.
Not quite solved, but should be enough to end panic.
My wife sits next to me on her computer, translating WHO & other documents into Slovak, for her friend and college professor colleague working at the ministry of Health.
Yesterday, 3 weeks after losing the election, the Slovak gov’t ministers all resigned, with an official farewell to the Slovak “Prezidentka” (a woman, as compared to a male President). All were wearing masks, the Prezidentka’s was color coordinated with her dress.
https://www.ta3.com/clanok/1179062/mame-noveho-premiera-a-vladu-prezidentka-ich-slavnostne-vymenovala.html
Same dress with color coordinated mask in the naming of a new Prime Minister (Matovic) today. Very nice dress and fashion!
Solrist – there is a lot of chatter about 5G radiation being able to cause flu like symptoms, do you know if there is any validity to that?
I doubt it… the amount of radiation and how deep it goes and is absorbed really isnt that much… in fact, the higher the speed, the less penetrating it is, and the more it gets blocked… low frequency waves go through walls easy… wifi has already been doing 2.4g and 5g for a long while…
for the most part the radiation has to do harm by warming things up and its just not going to do that in a human body with circulating blood cooling system. it doesnt go far as its easy scattered, and wont go that deep…
between 10**11 and 10**14 frequency is infrared… you go higher and your looking at optical wavelengths… microwaves are 10**9 up to 10**11 give or take… and they work by making molecules vibrate not smashing them… you have to get above optical to even consider having wavelengths that break bonds… at that point your getting into alpha beta and gamma rays… of which no one would use any for communications…
TommyJay best consumer GPS is accurate to within a few meters
The United States government currently claims 4 meter RMS (7.8 meter 95% Confidence Interval) horizontal accuracy for civilian (SPS) GPS. For example, GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky. However, their accuracy worsens near buildings, bridges, and trees.
During the 1990s, GPS employed a feature called Selective Availability that intentionally degraded civilian accuracy on a global basis. In May 2000, at the direction of President Bill Clinton, the U.S. government ended its use of Selective Availability in order to make GPS more responsive to civil and commercial users worldwide.
cell tower location is worse… though in city it can be similar given there are more towers that connect, but its accuracy really really stinks…
om Such a chapeau is 100% effective.
well… it IS effective.. but for what? and why and where did it start?
Tests were done and eventually published on using a MASER to induce audio in skulls
the microwave causes an expansion, and if its modulated in intensity the expansion contractin causes audio.
ie. the person hears voices in their heads…
this is different from the hearing of radio waves in fillings and braces… (am not fm)
The Microwave Scream Inside Your Skull
https://www.wired.com/2008/07/the-microwave-s/
The project is known as MEDUSA – a contrived acronym for Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio. And it should not be confused with the Long Range Acoustic Device and similar gadgets which simply project sound. This one uses the so-called “microwave auditory effect”: a beam of microwaves is turned into sound by the interaction with your head. Nobody else can hear it unless they are in the beam as well.
Army Yanks ‘Voice-To-Skull Devices’ Site
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/army-removes-pa/
sdferr on March 21, 2020 at 11:38 am said:
https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894
Post has been taken down, it’s now 401
Aaron G, I had seen that untoward pulling down of the paper without sufficient explanation, and a note somewhere that it’s available at Zero Hedge for those who want to read it. Everyone ought to read it, I think, and then consider the case made.
https://mobile.twitter.com/aginnt
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hysteria