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Social Distancing Evaluation Formula

Used to determine if social distancing should be practiced among the general population.
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against]

A careful examination of pathogen vector mitigation using available data and big words to sound smart.

1- Take the worst case scenario, healthcare workers that work full time in extremely close proximity to coronavirus infected people wearing PPE. What's their rate of infection and rate of death?

2- Using that number, examine the general population's rate of infection and rate of death.

3- Now here's were we apply some 3rd grade science: use those numbers as control groups. Gather a bunch of volunteers for a study that will offer to risk themselves in a test of going about their daily lives, work, play, not locking themselves indoors but wearing the same PPE that the healthcare workers use. I would absolutely volunteer for this study. I have relatives that marched or flew into combat against Nazis and communists in defense of our civilization. I think I can risk getting the flu.

The question would be: can we all go back to work wearing the same PPE as the healthcare workers? This is not fun, but neither is a second great depression.

You can also skip the study and just allow everybody to do whatever they want with masks, hand sanitizer and a little common sense. (Gloves are a bad idea, you touch an infected surface then carry that around with you. Zap it with hand sanitizer.)

doctorremulac3, Apr 26 2020

Serratia marcescens https://en.wikipedi..._biowarfare_testing
Uncle Sam says "Bugs Are Good For You !". [8th of 7, Apr 26 2020]

Polonium isotopes https://en.wikipedi...i/Polonium#Isotopes
Forty-two of them, some of which are almost nonexistent in nature. [8th of 7, Apr 27 2020]

A Higher Form Of Killing https://www.amazon....d=1588002568&sr=8-1
A good basic introduction to the topic [8th of 7, Apr 27 2020]


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Annotation:







       // A careful examination of pathogen vector mitigation using available data and big words to sound smart. //   

       Immediate bun for using Big Words in a Clever Way which will baffle both politicos and journos.   

       Oh, and we volunteer them for this task. All of them. Every one. Spare not even the children, lest the evil persist.   

       The problem is not that this is in any way impractical, but by the time it's been done, and the results are in, the current infection will have burned its way through the bulk of the population and killed everyone it's going to kill.   

       That's no reason not to expose an expendable cohort of the population to an agent that should at least make some of them quite ill, and hopefully kill a few.   

       There's also the slight issue of reinventing the wheel, as it's duplicating work done in the 1950-70's by many major nations who sprayed bioweapon simulants such as modified Serratia marcescens over urban centres, and released it into underground transport systems. <link>   

       Oh, and that's just the published stuff they admit to (reluctantly). Many, many much more dangerous and unpleasant things were done, using biological, chemical and radioactive* materials. Most citizens find it hard to accept that Western governments have systematically behaved in exactly the same way as the Warsaw Pact and the Chinese.   

       *Including, believe it or not, Polonium, because it's incredibly rare in the natural environment, thus it's easy to explicitly and unambiguously detect from its emission signature even at trace levels with simple unobtrusive equipment, and its short half-life means that it quickly becomes "safe"** because it decays to other, lower nuclides.   

       **This is an alternative form of "safe" from that used by the general population. In this context it means "It's safe, because it disappears quickly, leaving no trace, so no-one will ever know what we did". This is not "safe" as in "not harmful". That's something quite different.
8th of 7, Apr 26 2020
  

       // Polonium is common enough in tobacco smoke //   

       Yes, but not the isotope produced in reactors and cyclotrons. <link1>   

       That's the beauty of using it as a marker. It does exist naturally, but it's possible to discriminate the synthetic isotope 210Po from the natural one by the spectrum of the decay products.   

       A simple wet swab, which can be surreptitiously collected from surfaces in public spaces without attracting attention, can quickly show how far a simulant has been "tracked" by normal movements. A damp handkerchief or napkin will do the job. In the days before cheap, ubiquitous computer power and the development of the sort of environmental grid models used for weather forecasting, lab simulation for such situations simply wasn't possible, so it was done the only way that was; by using the general public as test subjects.   

       // Does that have anything to do with docremulac3's suggestion? //   

       Yes, it does. It's totally relevant, in that it clearly illustrates that the sort of testing suggested in the idea has already been done on numerous occasions. Repeating it will deliver little more in the way of useful data, although changes in social behaviour (use of transport, urban scales, group congregation) over the decades do significantly influence the spread. Even the use of PPE was covertly trialled, by disguising investigators as construction workers, including those garbed for "asbestos" removal. They would clump about tube stations in the full kit, carrying tools, and be completely ignored by bustling commuters. Who sees a man in a high-vis jacket carrying a toolbox ?   

       Both biological and chemical/radiological models have been extensively studied.   

       We suggest you might like to have a look at <link2> as some cheery bedtime reading. [MB] found it fascinating.   

       We're glad to see you've returned to more combative form. How are you getting on with the basic economics ? We'd be glad to help out, but were're pretty much comitted to an intense programme of misanthropic gloating right now, as well as analyzing epidemiological data and absorbing the latest thinking on immunology.   

       You've got a little fleck of spittle by the corner of your mouth, by the way.
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       Oh, grown-ups ... SO dull ...   

       Whatever ...
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       //This isn't combative, as we're both fictional. Your style is bullshit and distraction, mine is to occasionally point it out and then go try to find grown-ups to talk with.//   

       You mean there's a site for that???
blissmiss, Apr 27 2020
  

       He claims so. How he ended up here is not obvious.   

       It occurs to us that should [doc] consider our contribution to this thread irrelevant, he is at perfect liberty to delete it, and/or repost only those portions he considers relevant. It is, after all, his idea.
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       You’re kidding right? The flame war’s the best part.
doctorremulac3, Apr 27 2020
  

       How's the donkey doing ? Or should we call it an ASS-CII ?   

       (That was wit, by the way)
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       Humor registered: laughter protocol engaged.
doctorremulac3, Apr 27 2020
  

       You should put quotation marks round that; but you're almost correct.   

       It's actually more like 'Strategema', (q.v.) though, where there is no 'winning' tactic as such.
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       No, but there is a tactic to not lose, as Data demonstrated.
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       //The only winning move is not to play//   

       3rd law of thermodynamics. You have to play.
pocmloc, Apr 27 2020
  

       Ooooh, harsh ...   

       "You can't win, you can't break even, you can't even quit the game ..."
8th of 7, Apr 27 2020
  

       Just different sized playing fields. Data would never use a bigger playing field.
wjt, May 01 2020
  

       "Bigger" in what sense ? In each iteration of Strategema, the playing zone becomes not larger, but more complex.
8th of 7, May 01 2020
  


 

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