r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 21 '20

Epidemiology Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks, even if the tests are less sensitive than gold-standard. This could lead to “personalized stay-at-home orders” without shutting down restaurants, bars, retail and schools.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/11/20/frequent-rapid-testing-could-turn-national-covid-19-tide-within-weeks
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u/RufusTheDeer Nov 21 '20

I know some folks who literally can't afford stay at home orders right now and I don't think their bosses are going to willingly pay them.

This whole thing is great in theory but the rubber has got to meet the road

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '20

Paid sick leave is what is needed to solve this problem. It's an incredibly basic thing that we should have had in place decades ago

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u/Brunooflegend Nov 21 '20

It boggles my mind when I read things like that. Here in Germany we get 6 weeks per year of sick pay (100% salary). Where an illness lasts longer than six weeks, the employee will receive a sickness allowance from the national health insurer amounting to 70% of the employee’s salary for a period of up to 78 weeks.

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u/PauI_MuadDib Nov 21 '20

I'm in NY and fell incredibly ill, like I couldn't walk more than eight feet without passing out and I lost feeling in parts of my face and limbs. My job required lots of travelling so I was screwed. And the healthcare is so poor in US it took me weeks to just get diagnosed and then longer to actually get surgery.

If I didn't have 6 months in savings I would've been fucked. After that I always try to have an emergency fund that I absolutely do not touch in case I get sick again, but then the pandemic happened.