Interesting story about the one day test, with an incubation time of two weeks how big are the chances that if contracted on the plane that would show up in a test done the same day?
Can we stop perpetuating this myth? 14 days is when 99.5% of the people show symptoms. The median, which is far more important, is between 2 to 4 days.
"The typical incubation period for COVID‑19 is five or six days, but it can range from one to fourteen days with approximately ten percent of cases taking longer."
Most of the studies are with "old" outbreaks so likely more data is needed. Yet the median is still around 2-6 days.
> Playing it safe with the incubation time
That is, applying the precautionary principle. Not very scientific, but understandable (although I don't agree with it). Personally, now that we're well into the epidemic, I'd expect a little more rigor, though.
Well, given the cost associated with dealing with outbreaks it would make sense to play it safe, precautions have a cost near zero and an outbreak has a fairly large cost especially if not detected soon enough.
They just changed the rules so that now you have to self quarantine for 4-5 days and then get another test.
This is after two cases of people testing negative, then feeling ill and testing positive a few days later.
This is just for residents though, tourists can still get away with the single test, reasoning being they don't mingle as much.
I suspect that in an ideal world this rule would apply to everyone, but a lot of practical realities drive this decision making in my opinion.
There are some reasons to vindicate it though, as a tourist you mostly keep with your group, if you mingle it's mostly with other tourists I suspect, you don't have all your close friends and relatives or colleagues that you would really spend a lot of time with in variously intimate contact.
On the other hand, as you say they travel a lot more than locals in any given time period.
