5 ms·

This is pretty much the opposite of what's happening. The herd immunity strategy is working, antibody testing shows around 30% of Stockholm is already immune, w

by deft 6y ago

This is pretty much the opposite of what's happening. The herd immunity strategy is working, antibody testing shows around 30% of Stockholm is already immune, with their mortality rate comparable to many other countries and lower than a few too. The media that wants to paint this strategy as terrible and ineffective (despite all evidence to the contrary) is now scrambling to come up with an alternative explanation that allows them to say "but it wouldn't have worked here". A special culture is the perfect explanation.

greedo 6y ago
I wouldn't put as much faith in current antibody tests, especially where "In a low prevalence area for previous Covid-19 infection, which is most of the country, a positive antibody result could be a true positive or a false negative."[1] [1] - Michael Osterholm https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-interview-two-opinion/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-int...
- Kiro 6y ago
  This is a new test from Karolinska Institute that can only have false negatives, not false positives. With that said they had to retract the test results but that was due to other reason (accidentally including people who gave blood due to being infected).
  - greedo 6y ago
    Is that even possible to have a serological test that can't give false positives? Field contamination etc would seem to be something that can't be prevented.
    - Kiro 6y ago
      No idea but that's what they say: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmarna-har-antikroppar-mot-covid-19 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmar... Google Translate: > Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet have collaborated to produce a new antibody test in the fight against covid-19. > - We are happy to have a test that we know is okay. It is not 100 percent sensitive, it has sensitivity of 70-80 percent. Some will test negative even though they have had it. But no one will test false positively. Those we have tested that should be negative have been, says Jan Albert. (Google Translate translates chief physician to consultant for some reason but other than that the translation seems fine)
      - greedo 6y ago
        I would be surprised if the antibody test had a 100% specificity. The sensitivity also seems to be problematic as well.
    - timr 6y ago
      The specificity of a test is a property of the test itself, not of the circumstances in which it is applied. If a test has a 100% specificity, and you give it a sample that has been contaminated with the virus, the fact that it registers a positive result is not an error.
      - Kiro 6y ago
        People who downvote this, please explain. Is it incorrect?
  - simonsaidit 6y ago
    Let’s see the research and judge by then. I’ve seen published study from Uppsala that tested and confirmed antibody tests with high degree of accuracy 99%+, but had 1 false positive related to cross reaction to another corona virus but they had no details on the sample input or the kind of corona virus is cross reacted with, and hence no way of knowing the accuracy. Lots of bad science being performed these days so I’ll be skeptical until I read the results myself.
seph-reed 6y ago
Coming from the US, it wouldn't have worked here.
ajross 6y ago
Can you cite that 30% number? That doesn't seem correct at all given the actual case count. It would correspond to a asymptommatic undercount of a factor of two hundred, which isn't supported anywhere. Even the Stanford study only guessed up to 60x or whatever. Note that if Sweden were really approaching herd immunity new infection rates would be dropping, and in fact Sweden's outbreak is still growing. This at a time when it's objective size is very significantly larger than its neighbors' (who are dropping). > The media that wants to paint this strategy as terrible Are you sure it's the media's desires that are coloring interpretation? I mean, objectively Sweden's outbreak is the worst in northern Europe, and it's growing faster than pretty much anyone else on the continent. That's not consistent with "herd immunity".
- simonsaidit 6y ago
  My bet is that both Denmark and Sweden and other places that got these high numbers used tests that were both giving false positives eg by cross reaction to common cold corona viruses. We have seen this with early tests and as much as 20% of the population might have had just one of these 4 common ones. A Swedish study noticed this but didn’t get into the details and was essentially a bad study as it still concluded tests were 99%+ accurate. WHO was asked the other day if they had comments on these studies but all they had to say was diplomatic that they could help with input to make sure studies were performed correctly.
kzrdude 6y ago
That's in Stockholm, so the question is still, what about the rest of the country, they don't have the built up immunity. What's the exit from here?
Ackshully 6y ago
The media will bend over backwards to avoid mentioning the fact that while most European countries strip mined their health care systems, Sweden didn't. The EU has asked member states to cut their health care systems 63 times since 2012. Their response to this reminds me of their response to Greece; callous and fucking dumb. Neoliberal "ideology" is great for people at the top of the pryamid, until it isn't.
viceroyalbean 6y ago
>The herd immunity strategy is working, antibody testing shows around 30% of Stockholm is already immune This isn't true (or, at least, isn't supported by studies). There was indeed a report [1] published that claimed that 30% of Stockholm has been infected, but it was a mathematical model and not antibody testing. A study was recently published that showed that 11% of people in Stockholm had antibodies, but that was retracted [2] (only have Swedish sources for this, sorry) because the researchers didn't think that it was good enough. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066050v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066050v... [2] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/nya-antikroppstestet-baserat-pa-osakert-underlag https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/nya-antikroppstestet-base...
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  It was 11 out of 100 people, using an antibody test that's known to have some false positives. So the error bars are huge. (The fact that this result has metastasized into obvious nonsense is exactly why people should be careful publishing incomplete scientific results.)
  - Kiro 6y ago
    This new test from Karolinska Institute cannot have false positives, only false negatives. However, the way the test was conducted was indeed incorrect (they accidentally included people who gave blood because they were infected so it was not random). They will conduct a new test so let's see what that says.
    - esailija 6y ago
      There is no such thing as test without false positives so that's your clue. Especially antibody tests typically have 4% false positive, just a day ago there was news that revealed 4% false positive for a test claimed to have 0.5%.
      - Kiro 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
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by deft 6y ago

greedo 6y ago

I wouldn't put as much faith in current antibody tests, especially where "In a low prevalence area for previous Covid-19 infection, which is most of the country, a positive antibody result could be a true positive or a false negative."[1] [1] - Michael Osterholm https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-interview-two-opinion/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-int...

Kiro 6y ago
This is a new test from Karolinska Institute that can only have false negatives, not false positives. With that said they had to retract the test results but that was due to other reason (accidentally including people who gave blood due to being infected).
- greedo 6y ago
  Is that even possible to have a serological test that can't give false positives? Field contamination etc would seem to be something that can't be prevented.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    No idea but that's what they say: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmarna-har-antikroppar-mot-covid-19 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmar... Google Translate: > Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet have collaborated to produce a new antibody test in the fight against covid-19. > - We are happy to have a test that we know is okay. It is not 100 percent sensitive, it has sensitivity of 70-80 percent. Some will test negative even though they have had it. But no one will test false positively. Those we have tested that should be negative have been, says Jan Albert. (Google Translate translates chief physician to consultant for some reason but other than that the translation seems fine)
    - greedo 6y ago
      I would be surprised if the antibody test had a 100% specificity. The sensitivity also seems to be problematic as well.
  - timr 6y ago
    The specificity of a test is a property of the test itself, not of the circumstances in which it is applied. If a test has a 100% specificity, and you give it a sample that has been contaminated with the virus, the fact that it registers a positive result is not an error.
    - Kiro 6y ago
      People who downvote this, please explain. Is it incorrect?
- simonsaidit 6y ago
  Let’s see the research and judge by then. I’ve seen published study from Uppsala that tested and confirmed antibody tests with high degree of accuracy 99%+, but had 1 false positive related to cross reaction to another corona virus but they had no details on the sample input or the kind of corona virus is cross reacted with, and hence no way of knowing the accuracy. Lots of bad science being performed these days so I’ll be skeptical until I read the results myself.

seph-reed 6y ago

Coming from the US, it wouldn't have worked here.

ajross 6y ago

Can you cite that 30% number? That doesn't seem correct at all given the actual case count. It would correspond to a asymptommatic undercount of a factor of two hundred, which isn't supported anywhere. Even the Stanford study only guessed up to 60x or whatever. Note that if Sweden were really approaching herd immunity new infection rates would be dropping, and in fact Sweden's outbreak is still growing. This at a time when it's objective size is very significantly larger than its neighbors' (who are dropping). > The media that wants to paint this strategy as terrible Are you sure it's the media's desires that are coloring interpretation? I mean, objectively Sweden's outbreak is the worst in northern Europe, and it's growing faster than pretty much anyone else on the continent. That's not consistent with "herd immunity".

simonsaidit 6y ago
My bet is that both Denmark and Sweden and other places that got these high numbers used tests that were both giving false positives eg by cross reaction to common cold corona viruses. We have seen this with early tests and as much as 20% of the population might have had just one of these 4 common ones. A Swedish study noticed this but didn’t get into the details and was essentially a bad study as it still concluded tests were 99%+ accurate. WHO was asked the other day if they had comments on these studies but all they had to say was diplomatic that they could help with input to make sure studies were performed correctly.

kzrdude 6y ago

That's in Stockholm, so the question is still, what about the rest of the country, they don't have the built up immunity. What's the exit from here?

Ackshully 6y ago

The media will bend over backwards to avoid mentioning the fact that while most European countries strip mined their health care systems, Sweden didn't. The EU has asked member states to cut their health care systems 63 times since 2012. Their response to this reminds me of their response to Greece; callous and fucking dumb. Neoliberal "ideology" is great for people at the top of the pryamid, until it isn't.

viceroyalbean 6y ago

>The herd immunity strategy is working, antibody testing shows around 30% of Stockholm is already immune This isn't true (or, at least, isn't supported by studies). There was indeed a report [1] published that claimed that 30% of Stockholm has been infected, but it was a mathematical model and not antibody testing. A study was recently published that showed that 11% of people in Stockholm had antibodies, but that was retracted [2] (only have Swedish sources for this, sorry) because the researchers didn't think that it was good enough. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066050v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066050v... [2] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/nya-antikroppstestet-baserat-pa-osakert-underlag https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/nya-antikroppstestet-base...

matthewdgreen 6y ago
It was 11 out of 100 people, using an antibody test that's known to have some false positives. So the error bars are huge. (The fact that this result has metastasized into obvious nonsense is exactly why people should be careful publishing incomplete scientific results.)
- Kiro 6y ago
  This new test from Karolinska Institute cannot have false positives, only false negatives. However, the way the test was conducted was indeed incorrect (they accidentally included people who gave blood because they were infected so it was not random). They will conduct a new test so let's see what that says.
  - esailija 6y ago
    There is no such thing as test without false positives so that's your clue. Especially antibody tests typically have 4% false positive, just a day ago there was news that revealed 4% false positive for a test claimed to have 0.5%.
    - Kiro 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]