Testing, One, Two
It should be very clear at this point that we need tests. Except for those among us who are gathering en masse demanding to be liberated, we are all inside, delaying our reunions with our loved ones and putting off our vendettas against our enemies because we have no way of knowing who has this damn thing and who doesn't. We know it spreads fast when unchecked, so we've checked it by quarantining. That's all well and good but that's untenable in the longterm which means we need millions and millions of tests so that we can be tested and retested until there's a vaccine. This will be intrusive (you may start getting used to the idea of having your mouth swabbed or your temperature taken when entering your place of work) and expensive, with estimates of adequate testing in the United States costing $150 billion. That's a steep price but not when weighed against the cost to GDP if an entire population can only go outside on the vague self-test of whether or not they can smell or taste well. The predicted loss during the second quarter alone is $400 billion. I'm not an economist but I do understand that spending $150 billion once is better than losing $400 billion every three months for a year or two. Governments around the world keep hoping for a magical third option but—welcome to a really weird seminar—there isn't one.
While we wait for proper testing, technology has taken the lead on contact tracing. Apple and Google, two companies that aren't well known for playing nice together, are collaborating on tracing apps. If you've got the app, your phone broadcasts a unique code that can be collected via Bluetooth by other nearby phones that also have the app. A person who tests positive for COVID-19 and records that on the app will emit a different code, making it possible for contact tracers to know who has come in contact with whom.
It is excellent that companies are working together in a time of crisis but for these apps to be effective, a large amount of people need to download it, around 60% of the population according to epidemiologists. Symptom tracking apps for coronavirus have been available for awhile (I input data daily to C-19 COVID Symptom Tracker, created by Massachusetts General Hospital) but none of them have anything close to that kind of penetration. Singapore, which is handling the virus as well as anyone, developed an app that only 16% of the population downloaded. In Iceland, another exemplary example of pandemic control, saw 40% penetration with their app and that's in a country where 54% believe in elves. If you have a parent or an older friend who isn't taking the virus seriously, what are the chances of those people downloading this app? Secondly, anyone who has met me for more than 5 minutes knows that I believe our phones should be recording less information about us, not more, especially data that can prove where you were when and with who. And lastly, APPS LIKE THESE ARE WORTHLESS WITHOUT ADEQUATE TESTING. The entire enterprise is dependent on tested people inputing their data, without that it's just Snapchat, which already knows where my friends are, without fun filters.
The world has long known the importance of testing. Standardized tests were used in China in the first century, testing applicants for imperial service. The rigor and style of testing has evolved but standardized testing has been a part of Chinese society for two thousand years. In fact, it was in British colonies in China that Europeans, who had favored a less standardized and more Socratic style of debates and essay writing when it came to testing, learned of the efficiency of universal testing during the Industrial Revolution. In the 1800s, when British literacy crossed the 50% mark, standardized oral tests began being written. Americans followed the British model. In 1890, Harvard introduced a standard entrance exam that would replace the individual tests separate colleges administered. The first Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was administered in 1926 and in 1929, professors at the University of Iowa put together what was called the Iowa Test of Basic Skills when I was a student but is now known as the Iowa Assessments. The Iowa Assessments have become the gold standard for primary education testing unless it comes to counting people in a gym or auditorium for political purposes, which apparently isn't covered.
By the way, is it driving any of you crazy that the issue number of these newsletters is one off from the date? It's been bothering me this whole time and I think it's only going to get worse as the week goes on. On a related note, I'm losing my sanity Shining-style.
Anyway, as the tests got more sophisticated, they were designed to engage a larger percentage of the brain. I don't know why people believe we only use 10% of our brains but we do, in fact, need all 100% of it. You'll find that the human body pretty much needs all off its parts and there are very rare instances in which you can do without, and rarer still in which 90% of something is just taking up space. It's true that we don't use 100% of our brains all the time, especially if we're watching Too Hot To Handle on Netflix, but all of it gets used throughout the day. However, it doesn't take even 1% of a brain to understand that we need coronavirus tests and we need them now.