5 ms·
Given the amount of testing being done in South Korea, we can rule out that there are a lot more people currently infected than we know about That's a very str
by thu2111 7y ago
Given the amount of testing being done in South Korea, we can rule out that there are a lot more people currently infected than we know about
That's a very strong claim. SK has done a lot of testing relative to most places but it's still:
a) A tiny amount relative to the population
b) Not a random sample of the population
Their tests were done at testing clinics that people had to take themselves to, which in many cases had large queues and generally you'd only go there if you actually felt really sick because otherwise why would you expose yourself to lots of probably really sick and infectious people?
So far there's overwhelming evidence that either a lot of people have the disease without symptoms, or the tests have a very high FP rate. There's also a lot of people writing like the person above, who are sure they've had the disease based on symptoms but were never tested. South Korea wasn't deploying their tests on people who were asymptomatic, they are doing the same as everyone else: testing people who present for testing or who otherwise seem to need it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- scott_s 7y agoChina tested hundreds of thousands of people in provinces with known cases, and found very little evidence of asymptomatic circulation. See my comment from a week ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22475853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22475853, which quotes Bruce Aylward, an assistance director general and epidemiologist for the WHO. Our current evidence points to there not being millions of asymptomatic people.
- btilly 7y agoI see your HN comment from 2 weeks ago and raise you with a point in this article lifted from a recent Science paper. Namely, ...individuals with undetected infections were so prevalent in China that they apparently were the infection source for 86 percent of confirmed cases. This is strong evidence of asymptomatic circulation. This conclusion is not in contradiction to the evidence behind your previous comment. In mid-February with ~60k confirmed cases that would be 300-600k asymptomatic ones. Which means that China did not have millions of asymptomatic people at the time. And so it is no surprise that a broad testing regime failed to find what did not exist at that time. However what it also means is that as the number of confirmed cases skyrockets, it WILL be true (and possibly already is) that the number of asymptomatic cases will be in the millions.
- fspeech 7y agoThe study is on the initial outbreak in Wuhan when testing was in short supply.
- btilly 7y agoAnd has the testing story improved relative to the need? Also from the article and the same Science paper, For every confirmed case of COVID-19, there are likely another five to 10 people with undetected infections.
- fspeech 7y agoThey were talking about abysmal testing rate: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/scie... ”We estimate 86% of all infections were undocumented (95% CI: [82%–90%]) prior to 23 January 2020 travel restrictions.”
- gbacon 7y ago“I’ll see … and raise” is known as a string raise and is seen as bad form or even cheating. Actions in poker must be atomic. https://upswingpoker.com/angle-shooting-string-bet-raise/ https://upswingpoker.com/angle-shooting-string-bet-raise/
- magduf 7y agoSorry, I don't know anything about poker, but didn't Riker do this all the time on TNG?
- milesvp 7y agoHe did, and the poker on the show was generally abysmal. But partly for the ‘I’ll see you... and raise you’ prevalence in drama is that it creates a more dramatic situation. The dramatic effect is the very thing that can be taken advantage of in poker, and is why there’s a rule at most professionally run tables that what you claim, on your turn, is what you must do. Once you call, you can no longer raise no matter how much you want to. Though the bigger reason for not allowing it, is that it can really add confusion and slow down the game when a person says call and the next person now has to wait until they’re sure the current asshole isn’t going to say ‘and raise’ before they can act. Oh, and keep in mind that poker is full of assholes who will do all kinds of anti social behavior to gain an edge. So the fact that this is a standard rule really gives some idea as to just how annoying it is to the poker community.
- dnautics 7y agoWhat is the detection limit threshold on that test?
- makomk 7y agoI haven't been able to make heads nor tales of his logic. In Guangdong province, at the peak of the outbreak, 0.47% of people tested were positive. Guangdong province has a population of about 110 million people. If that was a representative random sample, that would mean a lot of infections, so he's clearly relying on the fact that it's a sample of people who saw a doctor because they had symptoms. Except that I don't see how you can use that to say anything about asymptomatic cases. It just doesn't make sense.
- fspeech 7y agoIt's 0.5% of people who were tested for the flu, not the general public.
- feanaro 7y agoThat still does not rule out mild cases which are regarded as a regular viral illness.