4 ms·

Tests have false positive and false negative rates of ~20%. Start testing millions and not only do you waste tons of money but inadvertently put millions of peo

Tests have false positive and false negative rates of ~20%. Start testing millions and not only do you waste tons of money but inadvertently put millions of people in danger.

LatteLazy 7y ago
Respectfully, I think you are exactly wrong. Testing 1 person makes no difference at all to the treatment of that person because like you say it's not accurate enough to be sure and because we have no (edit: Specific) treatment for Covid-19 that isn't just the same as any other similar infection. Whether you're tested positive, negative or not tested we will ventilate you if you need it and send you home otherwise. So why test any individual person? But if we had tested (and regularly re-tested) large groups, we would know: * What the range and controlling factors for gestation period are. This is important because you know when and how many people will start arriving in hospitals in the future. * How many people have the disease. Right now, we have very little idea if lots of people have had it already and not noticed and are quarantining for nothing. These are the asymptomatic. * How many people are asymptomatic but infectious. * Whether people can get it twice * What rate people actually require hospital places at. * What the R0 values are AND what they change to with different levels of social isolation. The lack of accuracy would not really matter because at that scale it just becomes error bars on values and that's fine. We can work with that. Those are the main pieces of information we need to actually "manage" this disease. Without them we are not managing, we are just guessing. Will their be less infections next week than last week? Will more or less people need ventilators? How many of the nurses and doctors in the building today will be available for work next week? Did closing schools actually help? Right now, the answer is no one knows. This could all be over in a week when infections suddenly drop because 80% of people have had it. Or it could be that only 3% of people have had it and we will need to maintain all this for another 20 months. No one knows because no one is testing large groups and making big data sets available for analysis. No one doctor can get 100k tests and use them on 20k people over 5 weeks. But the government could. But they're too busy testing each other and giving speeches and shorting the stock market. Sorry if that's a bit tin foil hat.
- logifail 7y ago
  > Right now, we have very little idea if lots of people have had it already [...] Q: Is there a reliable test that shows if someone has previously had Covid-19? Q: If yes, is it in widespread use anywhere?
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    Just my random musings... Any test can be accurate if you use it multiple times. If the coronavirus is 80% accurate, testing everyone twice makes it 96% accurate and three times is 99.2%. Maybe that's the answer. Even then though, testing individuals is pretty much pointless. It makes no difference to you're treatment. Not sure if anyone is doing wide testing. The US and UK are not. Germany may be, they seem efficient. Chinas numbers have proven to be total nonsense. Italy seems to have been overwhelmed too quickly to do much.
- eanzenberg 7y ago
  One problem: You test positive in a nursing home, but you are a false positive (20% of the time). You are quarantined with COVID patients, and how contract COVID. This is almost a death sentence if you have a pre-existing condition.
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    Like I say, testing individuals is pretty pointless.

Tests have false positive and false negative rates of ~20%. Start testing millions and not only do you waste tons of money but inadvertently put millions of people in danger.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Respectfully, I think you are exactly wrong. Testing 1 person makes no difference at all to the treatment of that person because like you say it's not accurate enough to be sure and because we have no (edit: Specific) treatment for Covid-19 that isn't just the same as any other similar infection. Whether you're tested positive, negative or not tested we will ventilate you if you need it and send you home otherwise. So why test any individual person? But if we had tested (and regularly re-tested) large groups, we would know: * What the range and controlling factors for gestation period are. This is important because you know when and how many people will start arriving in hospitals in the future. * How many people have the disease. Right now, we have very little idea if lots of people have had it already and not noticed and are quarantining for nothing. These are the asymptomatic. * How many people are asymptomatic but infectious. * Whether people can get it twice * What rate people actually require hospital places at. * What the R0 values are AND what they change to with different levels of social isolation. The lack of accuracy would not really matter because at that scale it just becomes error bars on values and that's fine. We can work with that. Those are the main pieces of information we need to actually "manage" this disease. Without them we are not managing, we are just guessing. Will their be less infections next week than last week? Will more or less people need ventilators? How many of the nurses and doctors in the building today will be available for work next week? Did closing schools actually help? Right now, the answer is no one knows. This could all be over in a week when infections suddenly drop because 80% of people have had it. Or it could be that only 3% of people have had it and we will need to maintain all this for another 20 months. No one knows because no one is testing large groups and making big data sets available for analysis. No one doctor can get 100k tests and use them on 20k people over 5 weeks. But the government could. But they're too busy testing each other and giving speeches and shorting the stock market. Sorry if that's a bit tin foil hat.

logifail 7y ago
> Right now, we have very little idea if lots of people have had it already [...] Q: Is there a reliable test that shows if someone has previously had Covid-19? Q: If yes, is it in widespread use anywhere?
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  Just my random musings... Any test can be accurate if you use it multiple times. If the coronavirus is 80% accurate, testing everyone twice makes it 96% accurate and three times is 99.2%. Maybe that's the answer. Even then though, testing individuals is pretty much pointless. It makes no difference to you're treatment. Not sure if anyone is doing wide testing. The US and UK are not. Germany may be, they seem efficient. Chinas numbers have proven to be total nonsense. Italy seems to have been overwhelmed too quickly to do much.
eanzenberg 7y ago
One problem: You test positive in a nursing home, but you are a false positive (20% of the time). You are quarantined with COVID patients, and how contract COVID. This is almost a death sentence if you have a pre-existing condition.
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  Like I say, testing individuals is pretty pointless.