That's an excellent article, very balanced. It's important to note the government's obligation to use the method least restrictive of civil rights in order to achieve the goals. That means testing, not quarantine (unless someone refused testing).

I see that the nurse in Maine won her lawsuit. News reports suggest to me that the judge struck a very good balance.


I have seen a of summary of exactly one survey on this outbreak, covering all of 44 cases, which saw an incubation period of between 6 and 12 days. Not much to go on for this outbreak. That survey may have discarded statistical outliers as bad samples.


There are no techniques with 0% false negatives: if nothing else, you're going to have mislabeled sample vials from time to time. Never forget "a chain is no stronger than its weakest link" whenever someone has to scribble a name or ID on a specimen label.

One question with PCR is how many iterations / amplification to use. More is more sensitive but more expensive and subject to more false positives. If the virus is there but was missed, they didn't amplify it enough.

And there's always the question of whether FDA approval is granted yet. This is where PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER.'s czar could be really helpful: walking paperwork through the FDA process.

(since when has using the President's unembellished name been censored here?)

(I think it take about four hours from when the sample is put in the machine to a result; it may be faster now)