The Corona Virus

[oldcolner]

US approves the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use.
The US decision also followed approval from Canada's regulator, which passed the vaccine on Wednesday for use in people over 16 years old. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have also approved the vaccine and on Friday Mexico's health regulator also granted emergency authorisation.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...emergency-use/

The EU regulator had all their data hacked and will not discuss approval till the end of the month.
They of course copied all our MRHA policies procedures and a lot of their staff. They’re just more bureaucratic.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Bell's palsy anyone..?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...lls-palsy.html

[oldcolner]

Not nice and those numbers are a worry, so it will be monitored now.
though later on it says.
“it's possible that COVID-19 itself could be a risk factor for Bell's palsy.
Facial palsy was reported in three Brazilian COVID-19 patients, at least one person in China, a pregnant woman in Portugal, and in a number of Indian patients.
A friend of mine got it and eventually recovered, took a while though.

[sinkov]

Round in circles we go.
In counter balance there will be false negatives and those Covid deaths won’t count, nor will those over 28 days after a positive test.
Most Governments look at ways of reducing deaths stats from Covid. You seeem to believe ours is on a mission to increase them and lock down the economy to increase our debts.and have persuades all doctors and coroners to join them in this subterfuge. Sorry but that is just ridiculous.

What I do believe OC is that the death figures are a nonsense. If you look back at post 1297 you'll see I concede the difficulty of compiling accurate figures, and what I point out is that the figures are not accurate, they are fantasy figures, and no one will admit they have not got the faintest idea how many deaths are being caused by Covid.

For a start the government refuses to take into account the number of false positive tests, because if they did, they know their figures would rapidly become a laughing stock. The government doesn't know the % of false positives, they admitted this in response to a question in the Commons a few weeks ago. I would imagine they could find out if they wanted, but they probably don't want to know. This is from The Lancet September 20th,

"The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 0·8% and 4·0%. This rate could translate into a significant proportion of false-positive results daily due to the current low prevalence of the virus in the UK population, adversely affecting the positive predictive value of the test. Considering that the UK National Health Service employs 1·1 million health-care workers, many of whom have been exposed to COVID-19 at the peak of the first wave, the potential disruption to health and social services due to false positives could be considerable."

So let's have a look, for an example, at the figures for England a month ago, 12th November,

Tests 244,963
Cases 21,918

Take the lowest 0.8% estimate and you have 2,000 false positives out of the 22,000 cases. Take the highest 4.0% estimate and you have just under 9,800 false positives. So of the 22,000 cases reported that day, somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000 were false positives, but no one actually knows just how many. So let's take the middle ground and say 6.000 false positives, that's just in one day, in England. 6,000 people given the false information that they have Covid when they don't. That should put the fear of death into them, it also means they'll have to isolate with the knock on effects for their jobs, their children, their wives/husbands, their friends, and if not their sanity, their peace of mind at least will be shot. And for what, for nothing, it was a false positive. 6,000 people, possibly more, in just one day, in England alone.

That's why I find these fictitious death figures problematic OC, nothing to do with the government trying to inflate the total, if only that's all it was about.

[1959_60]

What I do believe OC is that the death figures are a nonsense. If you look back at post 1297 you'll see I concede the difficulty of compiling accurate figures, and what I point out is that the figures are not accurate, they are fantasy figures, and no one will admit they have not got the faintest idea how many deaths are being caused by Covid.

For a start the government refuses to take into account the number of false positive tests, because if they did, they know their figures would rapidly become a laughing stock. The government doesn't know the % of false positives, they admitted this in response to a question in the Commons a few weeks ago. I would imagine they could find out if they wanted, but they probably don't want to know. This is from The Lancet September 20th,

"The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 0·8% and 4·0%. This rate could translate into a significant proportion of false-positive results daily due to the current low prevalence of the virus in the UK population, adversely affecting the positive predictive value of the test. Considering that the UK National Health Service employs 1·1 million health-care workers, many of whom have been exposed to COVID-19 at the peak of the first wave, the potential disruption to health and social services due to false positives could be considerable."

So let's have a look, for an example, at the figures for England a month ago, 12th November,

Tests 244,963
Cases 21,918

Take the lowest 0.8% estimate and you have 2,000 false positives out of the 22,000 cases. Take the highest 4.0% estimate and you have just under 9,800 false positives. So of the 22,000 cases reported that day, somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000 were false positives, but no one actually knows just how many. So let's take the middle ground and say 6.000 false positives, that's just in one day, in England. 6,000 people given the false information that they have Covid when they don't. That should put the fear of death into them, it also means they'll have to isolate with the knock on effects for their jobs, their children, their wives/husbands, their friends, and if not their sanity, their peace of mind at least will be shot. And for what, for nothing, it was a false positive. 6,000 people, possibly more, in just one day, in England alone.

That's why I find these fictitious death figures problematic OC, nothing to do with the government trying to inflate the total, if only that's all it was about.

I'm just glad that you became a fireman and didn't pursue a career in the health care sector.

[oldcolner]

[QUOTE=1959_60;39645523]I'm just glad that you became a fireman and didn't pursue a career in the health care sector. [/QUOTE

Me too 59

Sinkov is only looking at one side of this, there are also false negatives. For all tests the size of these rates dwarf false positives, so Sinkov needs to get his calculator out again

Here’s a Harvard Review

A large and growing number of laboratories and companies offer these tests, so accuracy may vary. At the date of this posting, more than 170 molecular tests, two antigen tests, and 37 antibody tests are available.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/...-2020081020734

What about accuracy?

Molecular Tests
False negatives — that is, a test that says you don’t have the virus when you actually do have the virus — may occur. The reported rate of false negatives is as low as 2% and as high as 37%.
The false positive rate — that is, how often the test says you have the virus when you actually do not — should be close to zero.
Most false-positive results are thought to be due to lab contamination or other problems with how the lab has performed the test, not limitations of the test itself.

Antigen
The reported rate of false negative results is as high as 50%, which is why antigen tests are not favored by the FDA as a single test for active infection. However, the FDA recently provided emergency use authorization for a more accurate antigen test. Because antigen testing is quicker, less expensive, and requires less complex technology to perform than molecular testing, some experts recommend repeated antigen testing as a reasonable strategy.
According to one test manufacturer, the false positive rate of antigen testing is near zero.

Antibody Tests
Having an antibody test too early can lead to false negative results. That’s because it takes a week or two after infection for your immune system to produce antibodies. The reported rate of false negatives is 20%. However, the range of false negatives is from 0% to 30% depending on the study and when in the course of infection the test is performed.

[sinkov]

[QUOTE=oldcolner;39645566]

I'm just glad that you became a fireman and didn't pursue a career in the health care sector. [/QUOTE

Me too 59

Sinkov is only looking at one side of this, there are also false negatives. For all tests the size of these rates dwarf false positives, so Sinkov needs to get his calculator out again

Here’s a Harvard Review

A large and growing number of laboratories and companies offer these tests, so accuracy may vary. At the date of this posting, more than 170 molecular tests, two antigen tests, and 37 antibody tests are available.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/...-2020081020734

What about accuracy?

Molecular Tests
False negatives — that is, a test that says you don’t have the virus when you actually do have the virus — may occur. The reported rate of false negatives is as low as 2% and as high as 37%.
The false positive rate — that is, how often the test says you have the virus when you actually do not — should be close to zero.
Most false-positive results are thought to be due to lab contamination or other problems with how the lab has performed the test, not limitations of the test itself.

Antigen
The reported rate of false negative results is as high as 50%, which is why antigen tests are not favored by the FDA as a single test for active infection. However, the FDA recently provided emergency use authorization for a more accurate antigen test. Because antigen testing is quicker, less expensive, and requires less complex technology to perform than molecular testing, some experts recommend repeated antigen testing as a reasonable strategy.
According to one test manufacturer, the false positive rate of antigen testing is near zero.

Antibody Tests
Having an antibody test too early can lead to false negative results. That’s because it takes a week or two after infection for your immune system to produce antibodies. The reported rate of false negatives is 20%. However, the range of false negatives is from 0% to 30% depending on the study and when in the course of infection the test is performed.

Thanks OC, you're confirming that the testing regime is an even bigger shambles than I'm saying it is.

[oldcolner]

[QUOTE=sinkov;39645611]

Thanks OC, you're confirming that the testing regime is an even bigger shambles than I'm saying it is.

Not really I’m saying the opposite to you, as there are more a Covid positive people than the figures suggest. You said the reverse.
it’s clear Covid testing is evolving and there are lots of players as the market is massive. Harvard don’t say it’s a shambles.
From a standing start to have any tests at all is a miracle.
You are a perfectionist, but what other technology has got off the ground in that time. The car is still evolving after 120 years the first electric cars started around the same time as petrol and may take over now.
A dose of realism says it’s not perfect, it’s just an indicator of spread or containment.

Given there are more false negatives than positives means quoted death rates will be lower than actual deaths too. Another off your pet concerns.

[sinkov]

You miss the point entirely OC, the thousands of false positives have their lives severely disrupted for no good reason, but that doesn't seem to concern you, if you are a false negative it makes no difference at all, you are either asymptomatic and will carry on as before, or you will become ill.
Either way the false negative makes no difference at all.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

FFS! Will someone please show me the bodies?