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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think antibody tests will soon become more useful for tracking disease progression in a population than the viral tests. The collection methods may skew things but they still are much more close to a random sample than the viral tests which have lots of issues with test shortages and people unable to get tested (or not wanting to go to the hospital with mild symptoms).
They have huge false positive rates though.
I've been tracking the antibody study results in a spreadsheet, and they are suggesting a 10-20x undercount of cases in the official "confirmed" numbers. You can see the data I've collected here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16onEUBWIV5IqN1RCvTla...
The 1.66%, otoh, seems reasonably in line or at least compatible with what's been observed in Korea and elsewhere.
Given age is going to skew things a good deal, it seems like a picture is emerging but not that new a picture. An IFR of even 1% is pretty bad, especially given these statistics show how infectious this virus is.
Does anybody know the false positive rate of the test? Could this be an artifact of that plus low actual incidence like: - False positive rate of 10% - 100 tests - 1 true positives. All with symptoms - 9 false positives. All without symptoms (duh!) Headline: "90% asymptomatic!" Truth: "Shitty test procedure!" Yes, yes, I know you know this. Do you think people doing tests and writing headlines know this? What is the…
As a Canadian, I'm shaking my head at our officials who said "we do know that asymptomatic people are not the key driver of epidemics" as a response to concerns back in January of the potential for the virus to grow in our country via incoming travelers who came from hot spots and were not screened or forced to isolate if they expressed no symptoms. Now our long term care facilities are being overrun with cases poten…
Isn't this a bit of promising news, means herd immunity is probably much deeper and larger than we are currently aware.
The kind of test matters. A qPCR tests the presence of an active infection. Antibody test determines past exposure.
Each has different expectations for symptoms, communicability, and prognosis.
It's not a lot to ask - just report the kind of test that was done, and do so with in the first two paragraphs. Then let me draw my own conclusions about what the study means.
That's a minimum. Ideally, an article would mention the exact brand of test that was performed. If heterogeneous testing methods were used, report that as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think antibody tests will soon become more useful for tracking disease progression in a population than the viral tests. The collection methods may skew things but they still are much more close to a random sample than the viral tests which have lots of issues with test shortages and people unable to get tested (or not wanting to go to the hospital with mild symptoms).
They have huge false positive rates though.
I've read that asymptomatic carriers are though to be less infectious than those with symptoms because of the lower concentration of virus in the saliva. Also, many virologists mentioned in recent texts that the initial concentration of the virus you receive can affect how sick you'll get - the more viruses you're exposed to, the faster they can invade the body and the more severe it will get. Can those two facts be…
No mention of what kind of test was performed. And this article is not alone - most don't bother. The kind of test matters. A qPCR tests the presence of an active infection. Antibody test determines past exposure. Each has different expectations for symptoms, communicability, and prognosis. It's not a lot to ask - just report the kind of test that was done, and do so with in the first two paragraphs. Then let me draw…