Turksat 5B Mission

Sun Erupts, The Big Cycle, Atmospheric Bridge | S0 News Dec.19.2021

NO HASSLES AND NO DELAYS: Convenient and Easy: At-Home Rapid COVID Tests

Intro: If you’ve stopped by a drug store lately, you may have noticed there are now shelves of over-the-counter rapid COVID-19 antigen tests available for purchase. They’re cheap, they’re easy to use and they provide COVID-19 test results within minutes.

PLEASE NOTE: This story has been updated. Experts are still learning about COVID-19. The information in this story is what was known or available as of publication, but guidance can change as scientists discover more about the virus. Please check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the most updated recommendations.

Where Can I Buy At-Home Rapid COVID Tests, And When Should I Use One?

Read this before you purchase a kit and test yourself for COVID-19.

By Julia RiesOn Assignment For HuffPost

HuffPost

 

". . .Health officials have said rapid antigen tests are a useful public health tool that can help us better screen for infections and slow the spread of the coronavirus. The tests aren’t as sensitive as the PCR tests most places have relied on throughout the pandemic, but infectious disease experts say the rapid tests are excellent at quickly identifying infected individuals who may be very contagious.

If you have symptoms and suspect you may have COVID, most infectious diseases doctors recommend skipping the rapid antigen test and going straight for the PCR. There are treatments that may help people at the onset of their illness, so if you’re symptomatic “you want a test that’s going to effectively diagnose illness with COVID and the antigen test is probably not that test. It’s best thought of as a test for being really contagious,” Sheldon Campbell, a pathologist, microbiologist, and professor of laboratory medicine at Yale School of Medicine, told HuffPost.

How do rapid antigen tests work?

Rapid tests scan for antigens (a protein located on the surface of the virus). PCR diagnostic tests look for the virus’s genetic material, or RNA.

The main difference between rapid tests and PCR tests is how sensitive they are. PCR tests are incredibly sensitive and can detect very tiny traces of virus. Rapid tests, on the other hand, are very insensitive — especially in people who don’t have symptoms.

Though they could miss small amounts of virus, they’re great at identifying large amounts. “You have to have quite a bit of virus to turn the antigen test positive,” Campbell said.

A large meta-analysis from March 2021 found that rapid antigen tests detected about 72% of symptomatic cases confirmed positive by a PCR test. The rapid tests were less sensitive with asymptomatic infections, catching on average about 58% of those cases.

“These rapid antigen tests, particularly the popular ones, are not good at detecting patients who are asymptomatically infected,” said Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of Stanford’s Clinical Virology Lab.

But this doesn’t mean the rapid antigen tests are useless ― and they might even be getting better. A December 2021 study found that BinaxNOW’s COVID-19 antigen test identified 87% of symptomatic cases and 71% of asymptomatic cases when performed by health care workers in a controlled setting. Of course, that number is likely to go down a bit when conducting them at home because of issues like user error. Other studies have found that rapid antigen tests catch most of the cases (93%) that have a solid chance of being transmissible. The rapid antigen tests do this by their ability to identify large viral loads, which indicate a person could be pretty contagious. (People with smaller viral loads are generally believed to be less contagious than those with high viral loads.)

“Someone who is antigen-negative but PCR-positive is almost certainly less contagious than someone who is antigen-positive and PCR-positive,” said Campbell, adding that further research is needed to determine how infectious a person is who produces a negative rapid test but a positive PCR test.

What kind of rapid test should I buy?

When shopping for a kit, look for a brand that has been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. These include:

, which you can get from places like CVS for $23.99, Walgreens for $23.99, Walmart for $14, Sam’s Club for $14, or RiteAid (prices vary).

You can also order through the company’s website for $23.99., which you can buy from places like Walgreens for $23.99, CVS for $23.99, Walmart for $24.95 and other pharmacies. You can also grab a kit off Amazon.

Ellume, another brand that was authorized by the FDA, is another option. However, the FDA recalled more than 2 million Ellume tests in November due to higher rates of false positives. The tests affected were those manufactured between Febraury 24 and August 11, and those distributed between April 13 to August 26.

Many of these kits tend to sell out quickly due to high demand, so it may be worth keeping some handy in your medicine cabinet (more on storing them in a minute) or signing up to be notified when more kits are in stock.

If you’re sick or don’t want to be around others, many retailers offer curbside pickup. Lastly, experts recommend avoiding buying from unverified sellers, resellers or via social media. That’s because, of course, there are fraudulent test kits out there.

You can find FDA-authorized rapid tests at many different drug stores.

When should I use rapid antigen tests?

The question of when and how we should be using rapid antigen tests is heavily debated in the medical community. Many health experts say the tests aren’t sensitive enough to pick up on all infections. Others argue that rapid tests identify the most useful thing: people who may be highly infectious.

Campbell said the best time to use a rapid test is right before you’re around a large group of people.

“By far the most important time to use an antigen test is not three to five days after you did something risky to find out if you’ve already suffered the consequences — it’s right before you do something risky so you aren’t the one who spreads disease there,” Campbell said.

If you want to test yourself, the most prudent thing to do is take a PCR test a few days after being exposed or doing something risky. But they’re harder to come by. If you’re opting for a rapid antigen test ― particularly before you’re visiting someone who is high-risk for severe COVID ― swab yourself as close to your visit as possible, Campbell said.

If you have symptoms, like a cough or fever, you should take a PCR test, not a rapid antigen test, Pinsky advised. At this point, you really want to know if it’s COVID, since there are treatments like monoclonal antibodies that may reduce the severity and duration of the infection.

Pinsky said we shouldn’t be using rapid antigen tests to rule out infections. Because these tests aren’t that sensitive, especially with asymptomatic individuals, “a negative result doesn’t mean very much,” Pinsky said.

According to Pinsky, another best use for them is in congregate living settings, such as a dormitory or long-term care facility, where they can identify an ongoing outbreak in which individuals are at different points in the infection cycle — some would be recently exposed, others would be newly infected or symptomatic and have detectable levels of virus. This is how other rapid antigen tests, like those used to detect norovirus, are traditionally used, Pinsky explained.

How to interpret the test results

Access to quick PCR tests remains an issue, whereas rapid tests are available at pharmacies. That said, they can be expensive; people are now calling on the government to intervene and offer them to households for free. Especially since, in many cases, a rapid antigen test is the easier choice.

If you keep some on hand, keep in mind that these tests have a shelf life ranging from six months to a year. You can store them until the expiration date printed on the box, but don’t use them beyond that.

If you don’t have symptoms but take a rapid antigen test for screening purposes and test negative, it’s not a guarantee you’re in the clear. It is, however, an indication that even if you were infected, your viral load probably would be too low to be transmissible. There is always the chance that you have small amounts of virus that the test just didn’t pick up, or that you could become contagious in a couple of days. This is why so many rapid antigen tests recommend retesting the next day.

If you have symptoms and get a negative rapid test result, tread carefully, Pinsky said. Though it’s generally believed that people who produce a negative rapid antigen test aren’t as contagious, since they have smaller viral loads, there’s still a chance they could be infected and shedding small amounts of the virus, which can then be passed on. It’s not yet known exactly if and how contagious a person with a small viral load may be.

Finally, if you take a rapid antigen test and get a positive result, that’s a pretty sure sign you’re infected, though as is the case with any diagnostic test, false positives do happen.

“If you’re antigen-positive, you’ve got quite a bit of virus and are probably pretty contagious,” Campbell said.

This story has been updated. Experts are still learning about COVID-19. The information in this story is what was known or available as of publication, but guidance can change as scientists discover more about the virus. Please check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the most updated recommendations.

HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Prices and availability subject to change.

The Complete Matrix Timeline

Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes | New York Times Azmat Khan

Intro: This is the first part of a series.

Summary using excerpts: "These cases are drawn from a hidden Pentagon archive of the American air war in the Middle East since 2014.

The trove of documents — the military’s own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times — lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. . .what the hidden documents show is that civilians have become the regular collateral casualties of a way of war gone badly wrong.

To understand how this happened, The Times did what military officials admit they have not done: analyzed the casualty assessments in aggregate to discern patterns of failed intelligence, decision-making and execution.

It also visited more than 100 casualty sites and interviewed scores of surviving residents and current and former American officials. In the coming days, the second part of this series will trace those journeys through the war zones of Iraq and Syria.

Taken together, the reporting offers the most sweeping, and also the most granular, portrait of how the air war was prosecuted and investigated — and of its civilian toll.

Part 2 will examine the air war’s human toll. 

 

HIDDEN PENTAGON RECORDS REVEAL PATTERNS OF FAILURE IN DEADLY AIRSTRIKES

The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. Documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.

The New York Times

 

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/18/us/airstrikes-pentagon-records-civilian-deaths.html

CHINA STEALS AGAIN, NOW IT'S USING PREVIOUS NASA DESIGN...

STRANGE DAYS: ON THE CUSP OF 2022 Hard-Wired Into The Matrix

Intro: The deeper legacy of The Matrix would not be revealed for years. . .the ultimate sign of The Matrix’s ongoing importance, as well as its predictive powers, is the fact that, more than two decades after its release, it’s becoming harder to tell if we’re living with The Matrix, or within it.

The internet has become so overloaded with misinformation and misdirection, it’s now possible for everyone to generate their own immersive reality (or realities).

You can now opt in to whatever set of facts you like, knowing your beliefs – no matter how damaged, or even dangerous – will be supported by a vast digital machine, one more terrifying than anything the Wachowskis could have imagined.

It’s a grim situation, one that undercuts the message of hope that was hardwired into The Matrix > the message of the original landmark film will continue to ring truer than ever: we’re all increasingly stuck in our own versions of the Matrix – but we still have the power to rage against the machines and free ourselves.

Two decades after The Matrix came out, we’re still asking: ‘Is this really happening?’

Brian Raftery

the Guardian

"It was early 1999, and people were freaking out about the future. A new millennium was on the way, carrying with it the promise – or threat – of massive change. Would the next century guide us toward a tech-enabled utopia? Or, as some feared, would it plunge the world into a full-on apocalypse?

These were strange days, marked by equal parts anxiety and anticipation. Which made it the perfect moment for a sleek, cerebral movie called The Matrix.

Created by a pair of mostly unknown filmmakers (Lana and Lilly Wachowski), and headlined by a commercially iffy star (Keanu Reeves), the $60m cyber-thriller became an instant hit. Some viewers were sucked in by the film’s mind-melting storyline – about a hacker named Neo who discovers that mankind is enslaved in a computer-made simulation. Others were simply turned on by the film’s whoa-inducing fight scenes. The year may have been full of big-spectacle, big-hype movies, but by the end of 1999, it was clear that The Matrix was The One: the first true digital-era blockbuster, one that foretold the ways technology would reshape not only filmmaking, but also our daily lives, both for better and for worse.

‘Would the next century guide us toward a tech-enabled utopia?’ Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (1999). Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

The pop-cultural impact of the film was clear within months of its release. The Wachowskis had plundered numerous visual influences, from Hong Kong action flicks to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. And they’d incorporated new digital effects that let characters freeze in mid-air, or dodge hails of gunfire, while cameras circled the action in a near-360-degree swirl. As a result, The Matrix didn’t quite look like any movie that had come before, and its slowed-down, hyper-detailed visual style was soon being satirised and adapted by other filmmakers. Not since 1977, when Star Wars was released, had a movie so quickly rebooted the look and feel of mainstream moviemaking.

But these were all surface-level aftershocks. The deeper legacy of The Matrix wouldn’t be revealed for years. A DVD release broke sales records at the time, allowing for multiple repeat viewings. But it was the internet that really let Matrix fans go down the rabbit hole. The Wachowskis’ script had been kicking around since the mid-90s, a time when the mainstream web was in its infancy. But by 1999, millions of Americans were chatting, ranting, and shopping online. At the same time, the spectre of the possibly destructive Y2K “millennium bug” hung over everything.

It was a tense, transformative period – one that was encapsulated by The Matrix. If you were suspicious of all this new technology, the film served as a cautionary tale about our devices overpowering our lives. But if you were already very online, The Matrix was proof that the internet was full of possibility – and that if things went bad, people had the power to rise up and reclaim their own humanity. . .