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Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

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Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#71

Post by robocat »

rumanator wrote: post #63
_ea1k wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. I haven't seen "praise"? I have seen realistic assessments of the ultimate effectiveness, but I see this as vastly different from "praise". I think the majority of people in the US that have observed how they handle it see their approach as overly harsh.

> I have seen realistic assessments of the ultimate effectiveness I'm afraid we only see the chinese government's report and data on how the epidemic is spreading within China.

I think China is mostly telling the truth.

Firstly, exports are hard to lie about. Order something from alibaba yourself, or here’s some graphs: https://www.plex.com/blogs/china-potential-model-for-post-co...

Secondly, Trump would break that news if it were fact. Hiding 10’s of thousands of deaths and 100’s of thousands of very ill is extremely difficult in the modern world when relatives live overseas.

Thirdly, I believe that China can effectively enforce social barriers, restricting the spread of Covid19. It seems reasonable to believe they can control it, even though freer countries struggle.

Of course you can always come up with some conspirational theory, and I keep my eyes open for lies, but common sense says that China is doing OK.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#73

Post by wwweston »

snapetom wrote: post #70
_ea1k wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. I haven't seen "praise"? I have seen realistic assessments of the ultimate effectiveness, but I see this as vastly different from "praise". I think the majority of people in the US that have observed how they handle it see their approach as overly harsh.

While social media has been more critical depending on the source, the mainstream media has definitely been carrying the water for China. https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/124324375891486310... I think it's been interesting wave. When the cases first started, China got blasted. As it hit the US, Administration political opponents have criticized the US response, but many have gone to the point of praising Chi…

If China did in fact ship emergency medical supplies to Italy, that's a gesture worth recognizing and praising. "Carrying water" is a weird way of characterizing that recognition.

China also deserves criticism; its initial response was dysfunctional in some ways (albeit somewhat different ways than the United States dysfunctional response). Fortunately, as you say, it's been blasted in some discussion.

But recognition of ways in which its response has been respectable is less the mark of someone "carrying water" and more part of the process of learning things and having our political institutions learn things.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#74

Post by robocat »

grugagag wrote: post #65

Related: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of... China is likely hiding the real numbers for unknown reasons

The “stacks of urns” can almost be answered by the quote from the article: “There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019”. (Edit: I shortened quote).

After a month of lockdown, the number of backlogged urns should be over 18000.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#75

Post by dnautics »

dboreham wrote: post #4
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

Couple of thoughts: - I think we need to know a LOT more about the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of every test that's being deployed right now. I am 100% willing to believe that "testing negative and then positive" means "you have a pretty low viral load and our tests suck more than we're willing to admit out loud right now". - I think we need to be very clear that there are two kinds of tests: "you have an…

The article mentions RNA implying that this is the PCR test not an Antibody test. False positives exist with the PCR test. Information I could find suggests the primary cause is sample contamination. So running the test multiple times through different labs and clinicians is an obvious workaround.

More likely sample degradation as well. Rna is notorious for being extremely fragile exactly when you need it not to be and extremely robust when you don't. Academic rna labs have a reputation for being clean freaks, and there was a spate of spurious observations when rt(rt)pcr became a thing ten or so years ago... I'm still not convinced of rt/rt results performed by run of the mill labs, generally speaking.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#76

Post by hprotagonist »

zerocrates wrote: post #58
hprotagonist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my longstanding argument against theranos, by the way (like, since 2005), was "look. if i go down to the beach with a bucket and take a bucket of water and put it in my super accurate shark detector van, it doesn't mean the beach is safe to swim at!"

To be fair at some level that's an argument against blood testing in general.

not really. it's just an admission that sampling frequency matters.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#78

Post by DeonPenny »

grugagag wrote: post #65

Related: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of... China is likely hiding the real numbers for unknown reasons

The reasons seem obvious. It's this the third pandemic for them in the past 10 years. SARS, Bird flu, Corvid-19 this is not a good trend if people start to notice

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#79

Post by ajross »

snapetom wrote: post #70
_ea1k wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. I haven't seen "praise"? I have seen realistic assessments of the ultimate effectiveness, but I see this as vastly different from "praise". I think the majority of people in the US that have observed how they handle it see their approach as overly harsh.

While social media has been more critical depending on the source, the mainstream media has definitely been carrying the water for China. https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/124324375891486310... I think it's been interesting wave. When the cases first started, China got blasted. As it hit the US, Administration political opponents have criticized the US response, but many have gone to the point of praising Chi…

I don't read that tweet as praise for China at all, and I'm curious why you do. It seems pretty obviously a dig against the US administration that, when Italy needed help, we refused to provide it while China stepped up. It's an expression of shame at our national impotence.

Now, I suspect you wouldn't agree with that perspective either. But it's definitely not praise for China.

As far as the article to which it links... that's all factual stuff. The PRC absolutely has exported a ton of PPE equipment and assigned a bunch of well-documented medical personnel to hot regions. That's good, as far as it goes. It doesn't say anything about what they're doing inside the PRC, but it absolutely is helpful that they're doing it externally.

Re: Mystery in Wuhan: recovered coronavirus patients test negative then positive

#80

Post by SaxonRobber »

smallnamespace wrote: post #52
lone_post wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Communist Party enjoys the luxury of dissent being a punishable offense. The media, the citizenry, the private sector are all held hostage by the absolute authority of the Party. I'm not sure why, but the media seems so eager to accept the official CCP narrative and take the lack of clear dissent from within China to mean China should be held up as a model Nation worthy of praise while simultaneously ignoring all…

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for. > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

Yes, those two apply to you as well. Don’t squelch discourse just because it isn’t convenient for your CCP.
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