[EvaH (OP)]

David asks:

I often read about super-emitters as the source of COVID-19 clusters. Might mass testing for super-emitters be beneficial in the control of COVID-19? If this could be done easily and inexpensively it could identify who should be tested for COVID regularly. A possible method might be able to be achieved visually with a laser sheet created by a mirror galvanometer.

What do you think?

[alancalverd]

AFAIK there's nothing physiologically or anatomically special about "superspreaders", they just have more human contacts than others before they are identified and quarantined.

I have some lasers and a mirror galvanometer. Any suggestion of how to turn this kit into a virus d3etector. never mind identifier, would be greatly appreciated!

[set fair]

Mass testing:- never mind super spreaders, if we could do mass testing then we could virtually eliminate the virus.

[alancalverd]

All testing does is show you that you haven't eliminated it. Only quarantine (easy) or a vaccine (one day, perhaps) will eliminate it.

[Bored chemist]

By the time we had done enough testing to identify someone as a "superspreader"- whatever that might mean, they would probably have shaken off the infection and no longer be infectious.

[evan_au]

The problem with superspreaders is that they often show no symptoms (or they ignore the symptoms), so there is no obvious reason to test them. And they sometimes just don't recover, as their body makes no effective immune response to the pathogen.

The second characteristic is that by their behavior they are in a position to pass it on to many others.

The story of "Typhoid Mary" is instructive. In the end, the health authorities had to arrest her, and send her to an island, and provide food and accommodation for her for the rest of her life.

See: https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/science-diction-quarantine/

[Petrochemicals]

The story of "Typhoid Mary" is instructive. In the end, the health authorities had to arrest her, and send her to an island, and provide food and accommodation for her for the rest of her life.

See: https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/science-diction-quarantine/

A long term virus reservoir, capable of spreading a disease throughout her lifetime, maybe quarantine will never ever be a solution to cold viruses either.