How is this better than Open qPCR which is 3-times less expensive and can give a test result in 1 hour instead of 2.5 hours?
Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
61–70 of 190 posts
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article [0] suggests that false negative results will not be as problematic if we manage to start screening on a population level. Inaccuracy of up to 15% could still keep the viral R0 under 1.0 (the critical value for eliminating an epidemic). From the article: > "False negative rates up to 15% could be tolerated if 80% comply with testing, and false positives can be almost arbitrarily high when a high fraction…
Shouldn't we optimize for a higher number of false positives? In the end, sending someone in quarantine for 2 weeks without them being infected is probably less dangerous than a false negative. So making tests overly sensitive would seem more applicable to me here.
No, we should optimize for a balance between the two.
For example a 150,000 batch of rapid tests China recently sent to Czechia had 80% error rates. You don't want to be mass quarantining people because of such terrible testing supplies.
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#63Is not ROCHE systems more performants https://www.roche.com/media/releases/med-cor-2020-03-13.htm ?
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#64More important question is, do we trust them?
Bosch is a huge company (400.000 employees). Don't drive your car if you don't trust them.
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#65Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#66Sounds really impressive, but writing "1,000 tests per day with just 100 devivces" is really marketing BS I think. They should've just written "10 tests per day per device".
> Sounds really impressive, but writing "1,000 tests per day with just 100 devivces" is really marketing BS I think. Correct. > They should've just written "10 tests per day per device". Incorrect. Marketing BS works.
And it even works on people who fully understand it and think they are above it
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Practicing hospital physician here. We never use the term "accuracy" to describe diagnostic tests, and whenever I see that term used, I'm very suspicious of the claim being made. In other words, this Bosch announcement can probably be ignored. We use the terms "sensitivity" and "specificity" to describe diagnostic test performance, and never to my knowledge talk about a test's "accuracy." Usually accuracy refers to t…
According to Wikipedia, accuracy is actually defined in this context. This does not not mean that Bosch has not used everyday speech here but it is not clear that they have. Too bad that the article does not include links to additional information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity#De...
Of course accuracy is defined, but it's not the right metric because you usually have a large bias in the tested population: even if you only test people with symptoms, you might only have 10% of people that actually have the disease; so a test that always says "NO" would have 90% accuracy.
That's why you look at True Positive Rate (sensitivity) and True Negative Rate (specificity) to factor that bias out. If TPR is 95%, that means that 95% of the people that are actually infected (10% of the pop in the previous ex.) will be detected as such. IF TNR is 20%, that means you'll mistakenly detect 20% of people that don't have it as infected, which would be really bad.
In other fields, people use Precision and Recall. Precision = % of times the test is right when it predicts a positive. Recall = how many of the real positives were detected as such.
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#68How is this better than Open qPCR which is 3-times less expensive and can give a test result in 1 hour instead of 2.5 hours?
Does 'Open' mean open source? Is there a free/open-source PCR design that DIYers can build themselves as long as they have the parts/resources?
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#69Sounds really impressive, but writing "1,000 tests per day with just 100 devivces" is really marketing BS I think. They should've just written "10 tests per day per device".
Don't current testing machines have much, much higher throughput? Like in the thousands of tests per day? It seems the advantage of this new device is latency. Of course if they are cheap enough and easy to use that you can buy thousands of them and distribute to all hospitals then might also increase total throughput.
Sometimes you need the motorcycle. Sometimes you need the train. If you only have trains or only have motorcycles, it's hard to meet all the needs.
Re: Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wikipedia, accuracy is actually defined in this context. This does not not mean that Bosch has not used everyday speech here but it is not clear that they have. Too bad that the article does not include links to additional information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity#De...
Of course accuracy is defined, but it's not the right metric because you usually have a large bias in the tested population: even if you only test people with symptoms, you might only have 10% of people that actually have the disease; so a test that always says "NO" would have 90% accuracy. That's why you look at True Positive Rate (sensitivity) and True Negative Rate (specificity) to factor that bias out. If TPR is…
plus in the current context, false negatives are much more dangerous than false positives