At least one company in South Korea, Seegene, has produced many tests and it is this aggressive private sector production that is largely reasonable for South Korea's effective testing. There is also a large demand for Seegene's tests around the world indicating that WHO tests are definitely not in sufficient supply.
The private sector stepping in is the best way to get enough tests out to everyone who needs them.
This is March 1st press conference from South Korea: https://news.v.daum.net/v/20200301162614985. It says Seegene accounts for 37.8% of test volume. The context is that Seegene (and only Seegene, other companies have other supply chains) had supply chain problem. As I understand problem is now resolved.
Assuming the WHO stash has not already been depleted due to the global spike in cases, the number of WHO tests available to the US is probably insufficient to be helpful for its over 300 million people. Incentivizing the private sector to create tests on the other hand does have the potential to get enough tests for the whole population.
This is a global pandemic and there are many other affected countries around the world that do not have the ability to ramp up testing production the way the US does. Poorer countries should be the ones with access to the emergency test kits, not the US.
They told me at school that viruses are not life forms. But, that is a good point I suppose, and, should want to know how that is determined "is it alive"?
If superdeterminism is true, it appears to imply that the universe is discrete at the smallest scales. Were the universe continuous, 'definite' position would be impossible, meaning that certainty itself would be impossible. Everything would be 'fuzzy' meaning superdeterminism would be impossible.
This is easily falsified by imagining that the computational nature of physics itself is stronger than a Turing machine. There would be no issue with certainty in a continuum if you were actively computing with the continuum itself as data
But that assertion is based on a set of assumptions that come back to information theory and hence computability.
You are right that in modern information theory exact precision on a continuum is physically impossible (for others: as we continue to subdevide the precision we require more bits of information, which has known physical limits).
But what I think the other posters was getting at is that if the universe runs on a machine that is not bound by those rules, say rules where arbitrary precision on a continuum can be stored as a value (which again violates physicality as we know it but such a machine is "outside" the universe so physicality is moot already), then that is possible.
Which is to say the universe is a machine which can compute things a Turing machine can't (a Turing machine can compute everything that can be computed that we are aware of, ergo if the universe can compute things it can't then the assertion being made - albeit somewhat clumsily - is that the universe doesn't follow the asserts we know).
I understand that if we posit a super-Turing machine in which arbitrary positions on a continuum can be maximally expressed as finite values what I am saying does not logically follow.
However, I would argue that such a super-Turing machine is logically impossible. In principle continuous values cannot be physically manifested with certainty or arbitrary precision regardless of what world we are in.
Positing such a super-Turing machine is like saying "I have a square circle in my pocket".
> However, I would argue that such a super-Turing machine is logically impossible.
I mean we are discussing it so it's certainly logically possible.
> In principle continuous values cannot be physically manifested with certainty or arbitrary precision regardless of what world we are in.
Why would they need to be physically manifestable? Again how can you make assertions about what parts of physicality are maintained by the machine that is computing physicality? How can you make assertions about the world containing our own?
> Positing such a super-Turing machine is like saying "I have a square circle in my pocket".
Except it isn't. It's more like "I launched my square circle beyond the observable universe". If it was in my pocket I could take it out and show it to you.
Positing a "super-Turing" machine is pointless because it isn't testable. But it is possible. I feel like that distinction is important which is why I commented. Which is much how I feel about super-determinism in general, sure it's possible, but how do we test it? It's pointless because whether not it exists doesn't change anything. The issue of the discrete values is an interesting facet of that, one that might lead to something testable, like those "is the universe a hologram" experiments. Establishing what would be required of such a system is useful, but it doesn't dismiss it out of hand.
I guess my issue is that your arguments don't fully embrace the theory so they are bit like trying to disprove the existence of a different god using the holy book of your own god. There are valid reasons to disagree with superdeterminism, but arguing from the lens of physicality misses the issue at hand.
>(for others: as we continue to subdevide the precision we require more bits of information, which has known physical limits)
Ugh. Is information theory mathematics or physics? Nature is analog and doesn't work in terms of bits, it's more similar to Euclidean geometry than Cartesian.
But ratios only express rational numbers, if we had to express location in a 3D continuum it's almost guaranteed that it would be represented by an irrational number.
Fair point and I don't necessarily disagree. I don't like the consequences of superdeterminism, just playing devil's advocate. If we exchange simple ratios for fractals we could have compute based infinite precision. Precision would just be a matter of scale of the measurement.
So if there is superdeterminism, meaning positions are absolutely determined, either there is minimum scale in the universe (discrete universe) or somehow the universe computes with infinities.
Both are absurd concepts! When probing the ultimate depths of reality like this there are no good answers.
You can't just conjure the necessary tests up from nothing. Japan has also had problems with testing. No one is trying to "deny testing". It is a work in progress and is indeed ramping up.
The WHO actually had tests that worked. CDC refused those and chose to independently redevelop their own. Then those didn't work, they still kept trying, while also blocking states from using their own tests that also worked.
The states with "local outbreaks" (NY, CA, WA) are the ones that told the CDC to get bent and did it anyway. It's everywhere, the states with low case numbers just aren't testing for it.
>The states with "local outbreaks" (NY, CA, WA) are the ones that told the CDC to get bent and did it anyway. It's everywhere, the states with low case numbers just aren't testing for it.
This is what I can't get people around me to understand.
No cases near me simply means no one has been tested for it at this point.
The FDA had a ban on tests outside of the CDC's tiny supply for a long time. That's whats being referred to by "denying testing." Not a political issue so much as a typical bureaucratic slowdown with very real consequences.
It is insofar as the FDA and CDC are controlled by the president and both agencies could make emergency exceptions.
On a phone call the day after the C.D.C. and F.D.A. had told Dr. Chu to stop, officials relented, but only partially, the researchers recalled. They would allow the study’s laboratories to test cases and report the results only in future samples. They would need to use a new consent form that explicitly mentioned that results of the coronavirus tests might be shared with the local health department.
Not a political issue? The FDA having the power to ban things known to be a good idea sounds exactly like a political issue. A pretty serious one - excessive government regulation magnifying the effect of a crisis.
There are two extreme paths we can take. The first is that we do nothing, the other is that we completely lock down our society like China.
While the first option would be unwise, the second would also be unwise.
A complete shutdown for a disease as virulent as Covid-19 will just suppress the virus for the duration of the shutdown. Ignoring the extreme difficulty and impracticality of shutting society down for a moment, recognize that the moment the shutdown ends, the virus will probably reappear and continue to spread.
What then? Another complete shutdown? When does it end?
No, the right solution is a distributed solution in which affected companies and communities deal with the virus, imposing gradual restrictions on gatherings, work, schooling etc in an organic way. Which is exactly what is happening in the US right now.
The point of all this is, what more can the US government do than it is already doing? Send the military in to shut down the highways? Hold scientists at gunpoint until they produce a vaccine?
Many (Media, Democrats) are trying to leverage this to their political advantage, but aside from small changes in approach, what exactly do they want the government to do differently?
> Many (Media, Democrats) are trying to leverage this to their political advantage
To date, most of the complaints about the current administrations' handling of COVID-19 have been about the cuts to the CDC, the history of Pence and Redfield regarding HIV, and other fact based arguments and criticisms. It is entirely possible that none of these factors had or will have a substantive impact on the spread of COVID-19. But they are still valid criticisms none the less.
In contrast, take Trump's response to the Ebola crisis[1], which was a remarkable example of fear-mongering and politiking in the face of a potential crisis.
Agreed, Reddit is cancer. Reactionary hive mind internet at its worst.
One of the biggest problems with Reddit is that Americans go on boards like /r/politics or in this case /r/Coronavirus, see extreme hostility towards America and Trump and assume that this hostility is all coming from Americans themselves, when really a substantial number of Reddit users (and users elsewhere on the Internet) are not American.
Not being Americans, their hostility comes more from predisposed bias against Trump and America than a careful analysis of what's best for America.
I’m not a fan of the man, but frankly, so many on the other side make him look like a saint that I struggle to understand the outpouring of hate against him. And it’s true Fox is just an extension of the Republican Party, but so likewise are CNN, MSNBC and (basically every other major news site) extensions of the Democratic Party. In fact I think that’s why Fox News was created, to have at least one outlet of propaganda for the Republicans given everything else was propaganda for the Democrats. The big take away from that though is that all major media is just official propaganda for a political party.
What kills me though is the “if you disagree with me politically you’re obviously just a racist/homophobe/etc. That social justice agenda has to stop. And reddit is prime real estate for where they congregate. I watched a mass reddit mob harass anyone who claimed an accusation from a woman shouldn’t be automatically taken as fact, and that women NEVER lie and you are guilty the moment you are accused, and you’re a “horrible human being” if you even dare to think a single woman could EVER possibly lie when accusing someone.
The internet has done a lot of good, but it’s become Ground Zero for extremist ideology like that to run rampant.
The thing is Trump isn't even particularly relevant to the vast majority of the stories, even when it's the federal govt screwing up. But reddit posters are constantly making it about him. The moderators do try to prevent the worst of political posting to their credit.
What's so ironic about foxnews viewers being victims? They aren't panicking appropriately enough or something? I just glanced at their website and it didn't seem particularly slanted on the topic. Looks like they have multiple coronavirus stories coming out every hour. One can easily freak out if so inclined.
Reddit is clearly just self-hating Americans, mostly kids. I guess you assume no American would spend so much time writing anti-Trump comments on r/politics?
I think the real issue is that you go to a place like r/politics or r/vancouver or r/bitcoin and think it's some canonical forum with some semblance of fairness but it's really just someone's little world with its own rules and agenda.
But you can't simply start your own subreddit because you're now r/vancouver2, r/TrueVancouver, or whatever and it can never get the same traction just because it's not the official-looking r/vancouver anymore.
Yup. You can't think of Reddit as a single forum. A subreddit is a community. By size, shape and behavior, Reddit itself is a privately owned Web inside the public Web, with its own, centrally controlled DNS.
I think there are a lot of Americans writing anti-Trump comments on Reddit, but I think the numbers are boosted by non Americans doing the same thing. It artificially inflates the number of anti Trump posters.
The private sector stepping in is the best way to get enough tests out to everyone who needs them.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-...