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Cough test

Tissue made with colour indicating binding sites.
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As I'm out of the biochemistry arena, Is it possible to manufacture, in vitro, some binding sites that change colour when bound?

My logic suggests a virus would need a certain level of infection before coughing starts to help transmission. Coughing into a test tissue would easily capture viral output. The tissue , if it is possible, would be a surface that has similar or the correct binding site and would cause the virus to try and inject it's take over chemistry. This act, the energy for a colour change, indicating infection.

Once infection is identified, care and help can be given. And of course, interactions can be traced.

wjt, Mar 14 2020

A bit on the nose there, [pertinax] https://www.youtube...watch?v=rKek0Y30Ctw
[Voice, Mar 14 2020]

[link]






       I have no idea whether this is feasible, but it sounds as though it ought to be. [+]
pertinax, Mar 14 2020
  

       However, I imagine an unintended side effect.   

       I imagine mandatory face masks made of this. I imagine one of them turning, as might be, a distinctive shade of green in response to a mild harrumph.   

       Then I imagine a small knot of people in protective clothing, their faces a combination of the early-modern surgical beak- mask and the klan hood.   

       And as I read the words "care and help can be given", I imagine this helpful team taking swift care of the green cougher, whose frantically kicking legs are visible only for a moment as they are bundled away.
pertinax, Mar 14 2020
  

       Thanks, [Voice]. But I hate it when I imagine a counterfactual dystopia, then check the news and find it's not counterfactual.
pertinax, Mar 14 2020
  

       The logic of magical thinking tells me I should therefore imagine utopiae instead. That's bound to work.
pertinax, Mar 14 2020
  

       Any tool has a counter productive use, it's just the advancement/growth of humanity in step with it's technology.
wjt, Mar 14 2020
  

       What perty said.
blissmiss, Mar 14 2020
  

       What [wjt] said. The first part of it, anyway ...
8th of 7, Mar 14 2020
  

       I was expecting the color change to be too small to be noticeable with the naked eye.
notexactly, Mar 15 2020
  

       The dollar store has immunochromic pregnancy tests for $1, so this is feasible.
beanangel, Mar 16 2020
  

       // The dollar store has .... tests for $1 //   

       Almost like it's possible to deduce some sort of causal relationship there...
8th of 7, Mar 16 2020
  

       // immunochromic //   

       You may be the fourth person in the world to use that word. I like it.   

       Also, a monoclonal antibody that detects SARS-CoV-2 was announced as having been identified a week or two ago, so that could be used. It was expected to initially be expensive to produce, though.
notexactly, Mar 20 2020
  

       Right on [+]
21 Quest, Mar 20 2020
  

       This could be good for telemedicine too: You just hold the used tissues, or tissues up to the screen for your doctor to look at and she interprets say a 3 color color code from the used tissue to be any of 340 different illnesses. Or, better, software watches the telemedicine session in realtime, spots the used tissue, and deduces the nature of the illness from the colors on the tissue, informs the doctor, and then the doctor switches to asking questions about that particular illness.   

       I have calculated colorimetric antibody staining can be less than 4.3 cents a test, so a pack of ten tissues, with a binary-tree out of illnesses 4200 deep is just 7*4.3c or about 30 cents a tissue, a mini-pack of ten tissues mailed to every HMO client could be just $3.00 excluding postage and improve telemedicine, and increase its use.   

       Also, no runny nose? Just expectorate on the tissue.
beanangel, May 07 2021
  
      
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