5 ms·

Where is the study? I couldn't find the link. "95-percent success rate" is meaningless without context. Specificity/sensitivity, prevalence and the gold standar

Where is the study? I couldn't find the link. "95-percent success rate" is meaningless without context. Specificity/sensitivity, prevalence and the gold standard used all matter. You, too, can detect coronavirus with 100% "success" (and much higher than 100% that depending how you calculate it). bool carriesCoronavirus(human *subject) {return true;}

remram 6y ago
There doesn't seem to be a study. There seem to be no scientists or statically-trained people involved at any point. The article is the same everywhere I look (provided by AFP, French news agency) and only mentions "dog trainers working in their own time" who "rely on scant financial means".
scarmig 6y ago
On the other hand, if you tested everyone using this strategy and quarantined those who tested positive, you'd eliminate Covid in two months. If adding a magic doggie in to deliver the news would help compliance, all the better!
- Shish2k 6y ago
  > [by treating everybody as infected] you'd eliminate Covid in two months Not to mention a ton of other illnesses. I do wonder if “the world’s governments pay everybody to stock up on food and stay home for two months” would actually be a huge win for humanity, and maybe even in the short-term it would work out cheaper than two years of 75%-lockdown :P
  - nanis 6y ago
    > the world's governments pay everybody to stock up on food and stay home for two months What's that going to do other than to cause the price of "food" to go up and cause a bunch of people to die in the worst Black Friday reenactments? Note that while it is possible to calculate a weighted price index of food, people do not eat the weighted average of all food sold. It is fantasies of control by people that got us to the point where every day every where governments are burning away their countries' wealth and their citizens' futures.
    - solarengineer 6y ago
      Many of us in countries with low Covid infection rates have willingly isolated ourselves over the scientists and doctors told us that this was an effective measure. We haven’t seen it as “government control”, and instead as measures to ensure that the virus doesn’t spread and infect more people than the medical staff can handle.
      - nanis 6y ago
        > We haven’t seen it as “government control”, The quotation marks are misleading because I never referred to government control. Instead, I am referring to the "fantasy of control." However, now that you mentioned it, in these countries with low observed infection rates, are people free to gather in groups? Are they allowed to engage in usual activities? Are they allowed to travel freely? If the answers to those and similar questions are not all no, then, clearly not everyone is willingly isolating themselves, and people who entertain fantasies of control or directing the power of government to limit their freedoms. They have done so without ever paying attention to the costs of such limitations on the usual functioning of human beings.
        solarengineer 6y ago
        I apologise for adding the quotation marks, and I’d added them since there’s no one else controlling. As for the freedom of gathering - we already know that with just a few weeks of not being in contact we can protect ourselves, our families and each other. There’s no martial law or curfew imposed on us - just a lockdown or a Circuit Breaker that we’ve seen as inevitable.
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I am always amazed to hear this argument about government control, you do realise that having a civilised society relies on 'limitation on the usual functioning of human beings' such as beating up the guy you don't like, urinating wherever you please, etc. Presumanbly you are happy to limit those natural human instincts. But somehow spreading deadly disease is you essential liberty
- nanis 6y ago
  > if you tested everyone using this strategy and quarantined those who tested positive, you'd eliminate Covid in two months. You have too much confidence in that statement. If false positive, false negative, and prevalence rates are all 5%, and let's say you subject 350,000,000,000 people to the dog test (ignoring the time it takes to do that and logistical difficulties with having enough dogs and handlers etc). 9.5% of society tests positive resulting 33,250,000 total positive results. Half of this number are true positives and half are false positives. That means, quarantining 16,625,000 uninfected people along with 16,625,000 infected people which results in the loss to society of their output and might also now get them infected depending on how they are quarantined. Out of the 17,500,000 people who are infected, there will be 875,000 false negatives who will not be quarantined who will continue to spread the infection. In fact, 5% false negative rate sounds kind of optimistic. If false negative rate is 25%, 4,375,000 infected people will not be detected using this method. You can play with the numbers using this calculator[1]. Second, let's say you put a dog at every company and every day everyone needs to be sniffed on the way in. If the false positive rate is 5%, the probability that you will not be quarantined due to a false positive during the year is 0.95*250 approx = 0.0003%. [1]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/app.html?scenario=Test%20350%20million:%20prevelance,%20false%20positive%20and%20false%20negative%20all%205%25;sample_size=350000000;percent_infected=5;false_positive_probability=5;false_negative_probability=5 https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu...
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    It's also possible to add real tests and not taking dog sniffing as a source of truth, but more as an indicator.
    - nanis 6y ago
      "Real" tests are also subject to false positives and false negatives. What you are suggesting is to ignore the possibility that dog sniffing may result in false negatives, and administer a "real" test to anyone who's identified by a dog to be positive. Keep in mind that under reasonable assumptions, half of those people are false positives. A portion of them will falsely test positive again. However, some of the true dog test positives (anywhere between 2% - 25% of them) will falsely test negative. Therefore, this strategy will result in more infected people not being quarantined.

remram 6y ago

There doesn't seem to be a study. There seem to be no scientists or statically-trained people involved at any point. The article is the same everywhere I look (provided by AFP, French news agency) and only mentions "dog trainers working in their own time" who "rely on scant financial means".

scarmig 6y ago

On the other hand, if you tested everyone using this strategy and quarantined those who tested positive, you'd eliminate Covid in two months. If adding a magic doggie in to deliver the news would help compliance, all the better!

Shish2k 6y ago
> [by treating everybody as infected] you'd eliminate Covid in two months Not to mention a ton of other illnesses. I do wonder if “the world’s governments pay everybody to stock up on food and stay home for two months” would actually be a huge win for humanity, and maybe even in the short-term it would work out cheaper than two years of 75%-lockdown :P
- nanis 6y ago
  > the world's governments pay everybody to stock up on food and stay home for two months What's that going to do other than to cause the price of "food" to go up and cause a bunch of people to die in the worst Black Friday reenactments? Note that while it is possible to calculate a weighted price index of food, people do not eat the weighted average of all food sold. It is fantasies of control by people that got us to the point where every day every where governments are burning away their countries' wealth and their citizens' futures.
  - solarengineer 6y ago
    Many of us in countries with low Covid infection rates have willingly isolated ourselves over the scientists and doctors told us that this was an effective measure. We haven’t seen it as “government control”, and instead as measures to ensure that the virus doesn’t spread and infect more people than the medical staff can handle.
    - nanis 6y ago
      > We haven’t seen it as “government control”, The quotation marks are misleading because I never referred to government control. Instead, I am referring to the "fantasy of control." However, now that you mentioned it, in these countries with low observed infection rates, are people free to gather in groups? Are they allowed to engage in usual activities? Are they allowed to travel freely? If the answers to those and similar questions are not all no, then, clearly not everyone is willingly isolating themselves, and people who entertain fantasies of control or directing the power of government to limit their freedoms. They have done so without ever paying attention to the costs of such limitations on the usual functioning of human beings.
      - solarengineer 6y ago
        I apologise for adding the quotation marks, and I’d added them since there’s no one else controlling. As for the freedom of gathering - we already know that with just a few weeks of not being in contact we can protect ourselves, our families and each other. There’s no martial law or curfew imposed on us - just a lockdown or a Circuit Breaker that we’ve seen as inevitable.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I am always amazed to hear this argument about government control, you do realise that having a civilised society relies on 'limitation on the usual functioning of human beings' such as beating up the guy you don't like, urinating wherever you please, etc. Presumanbly you are happy to limit those natural human instincts. But somehow spreading deadly disease is you essential liberty
nanis 6y ago
> if you tested everyone using this strategy and quarantined those who tested positive, you'd eliminate Covid in two months. You have too much confidence in that statement. If false positive, false negative, and prevalence rates are all 5%, and let's say you subject 350,000,000,000 people to the dog test (ignoring the time it takes to do that and logistical difficulties with having enough dogs and handlers etc). 9.5% of society tests positive resulting 33,250,000 total positive results. Half of this number are true positives and half are false positives. That means, quarantining 16,625,000 uninfected people along with 16,625,000 infected people which results in the loss to society of their output and might also now get them infected depending on how they are quarantined. Out of the 17,500,000 people who are infected, there will be 875,000 false negatives who will not be quarantined who will continue to spread the infection. In fact, 5% false negative rate sounds kind of optimistic. If false negative rate is 25%, 4,375,000 infected people will not be detected using this method. You can play with the numbers using this calculator[1]. Second, let's say you put a dog at every company and every day everyone needs to be sniffed on the way in. If the false positive rate is 5%, the probability that you will not be quarantined due to a false positive during the year is 0.95*250 approx = 0.0003%. [1]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/app.html?scenario=Test%20350%20million:%20prevelance,%20false%20positive%20and%20false%20negative%20all%205%25;sample_size=350000000;percent_infected=5;false_positive_probability=5;false_negative_probability=5 https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu...
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  It's also possible to add real tests and not taking dog sniffing as a source of truth, but more as an indicator.
  - nanis 6y ago
    "Real" tests are also subject to false positives and false negatives. What you are suggesting is to ignore the possibility that dog sniffing may result in false negatives, and administer a "real" test to anyone who's identified by a dog to be positive. Keep in mind that under reasonable assumptions, half of those people are false positives. A portion of them will falsely test positive again. However, some of the true dog test positives (anywhere between 2% - 25% of them) will falsely test negative. Therefore, this strategy will result in more infected people not being quarantined.