Guest Tests— Why Covid-19 "Testing Guns" will bring us back to life!

We are living a failure of imagination—and urgently need a Design Contest to create a "Guest Test."

In just the past week, fear of the coronavirus has closed schools, suspended seasons, and even postponed the Boston Marathon and Masters Tournament. You know March Madness is real when even running and walking alone is seen as risky!

First, a summary with direct links:

To foster safe gathering we urgently need a testing gun for airport, event, and visitor testing, perhaps a combination of temperature and breath analysis— with results in 3-5 seconds! This is well-testing not the sick-testing currently being employed. We know this works. We have proof from Vò Italy.

To unleash the best and brightest minds to create this device, we immediately need to host a Design Contest. Spread the word with Guest-Test.com . To end the current cesspool of air travel use BanMiddleSeats.com

We already have a 45-minute test that will keep elders safe, resume league play, and permit NCAA seniors to compete this June, amidst this "Madness," without fear of infection (Update: Now under 15 minutes)

Let’s choose innovation over isolation. Let's go from defense to offense. Here’s how....

It’s been a hundred years since the Spanish Flu, yet our primary means of survival is to deploy the same primitive tactics we did back then— social distancing and sick-testing. While these defensive tactics are essential, allow me to imagine a better way. Let's go on offense.

Once we get past this crisis, we need to expand safe-zones beyond isolation. In the process, we will well-test millions in real-time— far earlier than "sick-testing"— and, very quickly, recover from this mass hysteria and unemployment. In short, we urgently need to innovate.

If Dr. Anthony Fauci is even half right, the coravirus is 5 times deadlier than the common flu, so some hysteria is warranted. Lessons about social distancing from 1918 are certainly relevant and instructive.

Leaders in Philadelphia ignored Spanish Flu warnings and held a parade for WWI troops and to raise "millions" for war bonds. Within days, every hospital bed was filled and, within a week, 2,600 were dead. In contrast, leaders in St. Louis heeded warnings and banned all public gatherings which, in effect, eliminated mixed-groups of infected and about-to-be-infected patrons. Social distancing works, but let’s be clear: public gatherings do not case exponential growth.

"Public gatherings do not cause exponential growth."

Rather, Covid-19 spreads whenever we gather mixed-groups of untested patrons, regardless of the size, or whether the gatherings are public or private. Officials are misleading the public when they set a maximum gathering size. The only truly safe size is 1; not 500, not 50, not 10, not even 2.

There are no safe zones when untested patrons gain entry— not even at home. No one will ever know which of the two Hanks was the first to catch Corona. In China, 75-80% of new cases were contracted at home, until they began to quarantine victims from their own families. Yet, the fact that this modification reduced spread strongly suggests that victims are not contagious upon exposure, or in the days immediately followings. Let's hope there's time.

Rather than isolating ourselves, we need to develop a real-time “guest test" to ensure safe gatherings. Entry screening will not only create safe zones on airplanes, at public events and, most urgently, within elder care centers, but we will reap untold benefits from early detection. Travel and sports gatherings will become mass screenings— right where we have abundant space for secondary testing tents and triage.

What we can't allow, or rely upon, any sort of safe IDs, like wristbands or stamped ID cards. Right now, there's zero stigma associated with contracting Corvid-19 but, in effect, these IDs would create all-access, VIP passes. The very moment we offer real enticements to public— like unchallenged entry into NBA games— these ID's will be faked, as not having one would become like a scarlet letter.

Rather, those who have survived or are vaccinated will confidently pass any "guest test." In contrast, employers must be required to certify that all nurses, home health care providers, doctors, policemen, firemen, and teachers are uninfectious as soon as we have a vaccine. In the meantime, we need an effective entry test.

There’s word from Britain that a simple breath test may effectively screen guests. If such a test can be “weaponized” into a testing gun— an instant breath-test administered by staff or volunteers— we can all get back to life. Think of this as a temperature gun on steroids.

"Think of this as a temperature gun on steroids."

I imagine sporting events where we screen players, staff, and patrons in real-time. Such a test needs only to confirm that guests are negative, not affirmatively test them for Covid-19. It would be great if it did both, but we urgently need an exclusion test. I imagine the joy of every college senior the day March Madness is put back on the calendar for this June.

This is why we desperately need a testing gun, one that clears patrons in 3-5 seconds— not the "minutes" it takes for the British technology. Those who don’t clear the mobile test will be sent for a secondary test using physical samples. From there, guests will either be cleared for entry or triaged for affirmative clinical testing, which currently takes 15 minutes and up.

Such screening will not be perfect, but let’s get real. An arena full of tested fans will be far safer than even a small mixed-group at a local bar. We only need to know that patron are not contagious during game time, or during Happy Hour for that matter. If this testing gun is even 95% effective, we will dramatically tamp down the doubling math— without destroying our global economy, isolating ourselves from human touch, or justifying any delay in this November's election.

The first and most urgent application is for elder-care centers, where we don’t have the immediacy we have at airports and sporting events. Surely, we can create a rapid exclusion test to screen staff and guests upon daily entry. In addition, there's no time pressure on team players and coaching staff, so daily well-testing will allow league play to resume now without fear of infection. Once we have a testing gun, these two venues will serve as the primary testing grounds for the mobile testing gun.

Once affirmed, we'll roll-out airport testing. The obvious place to implement this is prior to security. Why? Security lines themselves create a hazardous mixed-group, if we don’t pre-screen entry. We will deploy several testing guns, flared out in circular fashion, to ensure we don’t create unsafe pre-entry lines, like those created by the US travel ban. In the meantime, we must immediately ban middle seats for anyone other than family units. What are these airlines thinking?? They're creating a cesspool on every packed flight.

I believe the airlines will gladly provide the additional testing staff, if only to enhance their brands through public service. For sporting events, entry volunteers could be rewarded with event tickets in what would, otherwise, be empty arenas. Finally, I know just the technology to empower the TSA and venues to coordinate thousands of volunteers. We just need this 3-5 second Guest Test! Can one be built? I don't know, but I know how to find out.

Let's call on the Trump administration to urgently hold a design competition for a guest test and a mobile testing gun, one that is safe, fast, effective, and reloadable— which they will readily do. The administration desperately needs a win and investors need reason to calm. The promise of a guest test gives everyone hope.

We will then use federal testing dollars to reward designers and fund the emergency development, elder-care and team player testing, mass production, and roll-out of these testing guns and secondary exclusion tests using physical samples.

We will only win this war with innovation. Even if we had an effective vaccine today, it would still take years to vaccinate the world! Then, we start all over again each time we suffer a novel outbreak.

Let’s choose innovation over isolation; life over fear. Let's entice our best and the brightest now, during the crisis, with a Design Contest— for cash and prestige— to foster safe gatherings, rather than face endless bans on gatherings. We know this works. When they tested all residents of Vò, an isolated town of 3,000 inhabitants near Venice, they stopped the spread and created a safe haven.

Covid-19 will not be the last virus to slow world travel, hamper public gatherings, and create a scarcity of toilet paper. We need offensive weapons now, and for future battles, perhaps, for a Covid-21 and beyond. This is one innovation our very lives depend on. 

We can all take action right now. Someone you know may just be the one who creates this exclusion test or testing gun.

Use these direct links:

Guest-Test.Com for this Design Contest and, to immediately Ban Middle Seats, BanMiddleSeats.com— Or, if you're sharing within LinkedIn, use the "Share" button below.

Spread the word!

PS: Any comments, correction, and insights would be greatly appreciated! This can be edited after post. Reach me on 1-888-Guest-Test (888-483-7883)