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The UK has other problems for the next month or so, but this decision in my opinion hugely misses the point of rapid testing for schools or other places 1/n https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/regulator-refuses-to-approve-mass-covid-testing-schools-in-england
Imagine you only detect 75% of true cases of infection. Well, you just cut the risk of transmission in school by 75% and that's not nothing. What about the remaining 25%? Use masks as well. Anything that makes it through the rapid test now has to beat the mask 2/n
Two masks actually, if everyone is using them. This article with @j_g_allen and @jenkinshelen explains why this is important 3/n https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/12/england-lockdown-3-government-face-masks-reduce-covid-transmission
I don't understand the damaging insistence that interventions be silver bullets capable of single handedly halting the pandemic, they work together as shown here 4/n https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/coronavirus-swiss-cheese-infection-mackay.html
Like I explain with @LeeKShaffer @baym in this (shortly in a journal near you) the perfect can be the enemy of the good. Let's think about reducing transmission enough through various interventions to get control 5/n https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37363184?show=full
That paper 
also incidentally considers the advantages of detecting *transmission* rather than cases, which is important for a thing that tends to spread in clusters, and can inform quarantine decisions 6/n
also incidentally considers the advantages of detecting *transmission* rather than cases, which is important for a thing that tends to spread in clusters, and can inform quarantine decisions 6/n
It is beyond bizarre is that this is in the UK, where until recently there was a parroting insistence that "schools are safe" instead of doing stuff to make them safe*er* 7/n
Testing (of all kinds) is an important part of that. One of the relative success stories of the last few months has been the way regular testing in colleges has restricted transmission in this age group https://www.bu.edu/healthway/community-dashboard/ 8/n
Making this work, of course, requires clear honest messaging from trusted sources. Plus a consistent goal to keep transmission low across the board, not high in some groups and low in others.
Yeah, I know.
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Yeah, I know.
9/end
