141–150 of 187 posts
> The sensitivity is 97.90 %, the specificity is 91.77%. This seems like it could provide a false sense of security to many if used widely by the general population.
https://i1.wp.com/emcrit.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/perf...
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There is evidence that people can become re-infected, so antibodies aren't enough.
There’s not good evidence of that. There have been cases of people testing negative then positive again but that doesn’t mean they had cleared the virus and got reinfected. It more likely means they had a false negative. (E.g. I have a friend in hospital right now with COVID-19 that has had four tests, one positive, two negative, then one positive again, all tests within the space of four days.) It also can be the ca…
uh, how? Perhaps this is tangential, but it's important that anyone who is immunocompromised takes this seriously. Don't just think you'll be ok with a bit of luck. If you are immunocompromised your immune response is by definition weak and we have no working therapeutics.
Yeah, yeah, I know there are 2 promising ones but its not really clear. The Gilead one is fairly legit, but the protocol used to compare Chloroquine for covid is fucking bullshit. They compared people across hospitals, way too many things different, you can't actually draw any valid scientific conclusion - it's purely anecdotal (as thankfully Fauci made more clear to the public today).
Is this a serum or antibody test? If so, this is very good news. If mass testing occurs we will know very soon the true nature of the disease. For example, after serum testing for H1N1 we learned -- to our horror -- that 1.4 billion people had it. However, it also meant that H1N1 wasn't as dangerous as we thought it was. I hope this will give the medical community and our governments the clear data we desperately nee…
> after serum testing for H1N1 we learned -- to our horror -- that 1.4 billion people had it. However, it also meant that H1N1 wasn't as dangerous as we thought it was. Citations please?
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This is an antibody test which will only be positive days after the onset of symptoms. This isn't really what your Twitter link says. That links says: "Both IgM & IgG (those are two different kinds of antibodies, with IgA being a third) were low or undetectable at day 0, but increased by day 5 in nearly all patients (N=16)" -- Reports strongly indicate there are many infected people who are asymptomatic after five da…
Does "N=16" mean they've approved this test after such limited testing? I think my high school stats class told me not to trust studies where N < 30.
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I'm interested in the frontline response here as if you already have immunity that person can serve in "risky" positions like working at airports, etc.
Serious question: can an employer discriminate based on immunity status? My personal opinion is absolutely. But I'm 99% certain a vocal minority will spoil it for us.
I think it will ultimately be in the hands of workers to decide whether or not they want to do the job. Maybe I'm immune to Coronavirus so I should work in a pharmacy... but I get paid 10x as much writing software, so I'm probably going to do that instead.
This is an antibody test which will only be positive days after the onset of symptoms. This is principally useful for several purposes: 1. Figuring out who to isolate in hospitals if the RNA test isn't available in sufficient quantity 2. Understanding who has already recovered from COVID-19 and is thus immune with all that implies in terms of inability to spread the disease and reduced need for PPE 3. Enabling us to…
> 2. Understanding who has already recovered from COVID-19 and is thus immune with all that implies in terms of inability to spread the disease and reduced need for PPE I've been looking forward to seeing this kind of test just for this reason so we can whitelist people. But since a large percentage of people don't have symptoms how can you tell if you're still shedding the virus?
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This is an antibody test which will only be positive days after the onset of symptoms. This isn't really what your Twitter link says. That links says: "Both IgM & IgG (those are two different kinds of antibodies, with IgA being a third) were low or undetectable at day 0, but increased by day 5 in nearly all patients (N=16)" -- Reports strongly indicate there are many infected people who are asymptomatic after five da…
Does "N=16" mean they've approved this test after such limited testing? I think my high school stats class told me not to trust studies where N < 30.
For example if it’s a massive effect, maybe 10 people is sufficient, but if it’s tiny enough to get swallowed up in statistical noise until you have 1000, then you need N >= 1000
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My wife is a health care provider in Seattle (meaning that our family has much higher than average exposure risk) and the last few months have been brutal. We've all been sick one way or another since January and have had all the common Covid symptoms. So I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a test showed I've already had it.
If that's true, it seems to me that it would imply that this whole thing is a mass hysteria, at least as applied to the U.S. population, since Seattle would have looked like Italy a month ago.
(The backstory is... I went to this party in early February. My friends were sick and they said that there was a really strange cold going around their office; everyone was sick, and the symptoms were different from their usual colds. Everyone there travels like crazy. About 3 days later, I got sick, and indeed... it was very unlike my usual colds and very much like the symptoms associated with COVID-19. It didn't raise any alarm to me at the time, but with a month and a half of knowledge later, it sure seems suspicious to me.)
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If that's true, it seems to me that it would imply that this whole thing is a mass hysteria, at least as applied to the U.S. population, since Seattle would have looked like Italy a month ago.
The total number of confirmed deaths (~250 in the US) is still incredibly low compared to the normal number of deaths attributed to respiratory problems over the same time range. Anecdotally, I keep hearing from other healthcare professionals about the high number of respiratory-related deaths in hospitals lately - most of which never get tested for Covid. I'd really like to know if there has been a bump in respirato…
