Stop Posting the Conspiracy Rubbish

[FabioPorkpie]

So a few on here had a discussion a few months ago now about the PCR test and if it's reliable enough to pick up live virus fragments or dead ones etc. Some were called out for been conspiracy theorists.


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Thoughts? Have the authorities invented a better, more reliable test yet?

Several people, such as Heneghan, have been trying to make this point for many months but it often goes unheard. I’ll be honest, I’ve been guilty of chucking him into the ‘really?? That can’t be right, otherwise more people would know about it and be angry’ bracket previously, but sometimes, some of the things he and his like say, are actually scientifically sound and merit discussion.

Anyway, the take away is that 20k positive tests officially does NOT mean 20k people actually have, and are capable of spreading, SARS-cov-2, at that time.
Might be quite a high proportion, might be quite a low proportion. Who knows?
I do think this point is generally accepted by plenty in the scientific community but it’s not widely known amongst the public. People think that 20k positive tests mean 20k new people now have it (obviously plus the other 20 odd k who are untested or asymptomatic and the 500k or whatever it is, that have it but were tested a week ago etc)

Regarding the new mass testing of asymptomatic cases, surely this will have the same issue-finding loads of non-currently active cases and even driving policy, not to mention isolating lots of people unnecessarily.

Having said that, is it just a case that it’s preferable having those who MAY be positive isolate rather than risk them spreading it, (if they are positive but not above the threshold level for being currently infectious).
I don’t know how they fix this, unless it’s easy to insert a threshold level when interpreting the results?
And if it is that easy, and they’ve just not done it, then it begs the question, why?

 

[Randy]

Several people, such as Heneghan, have been trying to make this point for many months but it often goes unheard. I’ll be honest, I’ve been guilty of chucking him into the ‘really?? That can’t be right, otherwise more people would know about it and be angry’ bracket previously, but sometimes, some of the things he and his like say, are actually scientifically sound and merit discussion.

Anyway, the take away is that 20k positive tests officially does NOT mean 20k people actually have, and are capable of spreading, SARS-cov-2, at that time.
Might be quite a high proportion, might be quite a low proportion. Who knows?
I do think this point is generally accepted by plenty in the scientific community but it’s not widely known amongst the public. People think that 20k positive cases mean 20k people have it now (obviously plus the other 20 odd k who are untested or asymptomatic)

Regarding the new mass testing of asymptomatic cases, surely this will have the same issue-finding loads of non-currently active cases and even driving policy, not to mention isolating lots of people unnecessarily.

Having said that, is it just a case that it’s preferable having those who MAY be positive isolate rather than risk them spreading it, (if they are positive but not above the threshold level for being currently infectious).
I don’t know how they fix this, unless it’s easy to insert a threshold level when interpreting the results?
And if it is that easy, and they’ve just not done it, then it begs the question, why?

You'd think that someone somewhere would have invented a test that only detects live virus fragments. It's

 

[ForssAwakens]

You can’t debunk deaths, pcr positives and the ifr rate like is happening here on this thread unless you think there’s a conspiracy

532 deaths. Even at 0.4% that would mean 133k cases 3 weeks ago using ‘the 3 week lag’ maths (it’s not exact science like that by for illustrative purposes)

At around 20-25k cases reported and if you take the figure 20% showing symptoms it shows tests are not that far off, but you could argue it strengthens the argument around false negatives outweigh false negatives. Personally I think it’s people not getting a test when showing symptoms.

people are getting the disease. High numbers are dying, high numbers will continue to die.

 

[Randy]

You can’t debunk deaths, pcr positives and the ifr rate like is happening here on this thread unless you think there’s a conspiracy

532 deaths. Even at 0.4% that would mean 133k cases 3 weeks ago using ‘the 3 week lag’ maths (it’s not exact science like that by for illustrative purposes)

At around 20-25k cases reported and if you take the figure 20% showing symptoms it shows tests are not that far off, but you could argue it strengthens the argument around false negatives outweigh false negatives. Personally I think it’s people not getting a test when showing symptoms.

people are getting the disease. High numbers are dying, high numbers will continue to die.

Not trying to debunk anything, just posted a freedom of information request response that someone had asked for.

No conspiracy talk here.

Your point about people not getting a test when showing symptoms is am interesting one. I think it's down to people either believing they just have a cold or they cannot afford to take time off of work.

 

[FabioPorkpie]

You can’t debunk deaths, pcr positives and the ifr rate like is happening here on this thread unless you think there’s a conspiracy

532 deaths. Even at 0.4% that would mean 133k cases 3 weeks ago using ‘the 3 week lag’ maths (it’s not exact science like that by for illustrative purposes)

At around 20-25k cases reported and if you take the figure 20% showing symptoms it shows tests are not that far off, but you could argue it strengthens the argument around false negatives outweigh false negatives. Personally I think it’s people not getting a test when showing symptoms.

people are getting the disease. High numbers are dying, high numbers will continue to die.

532 deaths didn’t occur on the same day, you do realise that? They were reported on that date, but the actual date of death covers a range of dates. So you need to weight your assumptions for figures on that basis.

This isn’t conspiracy theory nonsense. Some stuff is, but this is not. It’s just a fact that the test picks up dead virus and can indicate positive even after the infectious threshold has long since been passed in the person.
The point is, this discussion is not allowed and so this flaw cannot be addressed.

Actually, I give up. None so blind as those that do not want to see. There is so much misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the data that it’s actually impossible to have a conversation about it:

 

[FabioPorkpie]

Your point about people not getting a test when showing symptoms is am interesting one. I think it's down to people either believing they just have a cold or they cannot afford to take time off of work.

I agree, people are either in denial, ignorant, or simply don’t care, or can’t afford to take the time off work. Until it’s made easier financially for people to self isolate, a large number are unfortunately going to slip through the net.

 

[ForssAwakens]

532 deaths didn’t occur on the same day, you do realise that? They were reported on that date, but the actual date of death covers a range of dates. So you need to weight your assumptions for figures on that basis.

This isn’t conspiracy theory nonsense. Some stuff is, but this is not. It’s just a fact that the test picks up dead virus and can indicate positive even after the infectious threshold has long since been passed in the person.
The point is, this discussion is not allowed and so this flaw cannot be addressed.

Actually, I give up. None so blind as those that do not want to see. There is so much misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the data that it’s actually impossible to have a conversation about it:

The deaths on every day are reported for different days. It’s a figure to use as a gauge. They’ll be deaths to be announced for yesterday in future dates

 

[ForssAwakens]

Not trying to debunk anything, just posted a freedom of information request response that someone had asked for.

No conspiracy talk here.

Your point about people not getting a test when showing symptoms is am interesting one. I think it's down to people either believing they just have a cold or they cannot afford to take time off of work.

I agree with the last point, and the government should do more to support

 

[Statto1]

You can’t debunk deaths, pcr positives and the ifr rate like is happening here on this thread unless you think there’s a conspiracy

532 deaths. Even at 0.4% that would mean 133k cases 3 weeks ago using ‘the 3 week lag’ maths (it’s not exact science like that by for illustrative purposes)

At around 20-25k cases reported and if you take the figure 20% showing symptoms it shows tests are not that far off, but you could argue it strengthens the argument around false negatives outweigh false negatives. Personally I think it’s people not getting a test when showing symptoms.

people are getting the disease. High numbers are dying, high numbers will continue to die.

Yeah, that's along the lines of what I've been saying, the main two gripes I have are.
1) Either the IFR is low and we have masses of cases or the IFR is high and we have less cases, they're inversely proportional, it can't be both ways (unless it's a conspiracy).
2) We can't have herd immunity unless we've had a boat load of cases (or some other inherent immunity), and if that's the case, then PCR has to be under reporting (or they're saying it's a conspiracy).

Be careful with the 532 though, as that might be from the "high day" of the week (although last week the high day was Wednesday), and we don't need to use the extremes of the figures to prove our (the worlds) point. If you use the 7 day average on that day it gives us a good idea where that graph is going, and it's still going up for the deaths, and cases have been running level for about 2 weeks by the looks of it. So we're likely somewhere near peak deaths per day, but it's likely to run fairly level until about 2-3 weeks after that case graph starts declining. That case graph will probably decline in the next week or so after the various tier 3 and national lockdowns take further effect, and then deaths trail that by 2-3 weeks like you say. So we're probably going to be near this 360 average for about 3-4 weeks, assuming things go as expected. Hopefully the lock down is enough to get R below 1, or we're stuck at this until Christmas.

As for the IFR/ cases, 360 is the current 7 day average deaths (likely less than the true figure though)
At 1% IFR that's 36,000 cases per day
At 0.7% IFR that's 51,000 cases per day
At 0.5% IFR that's 72,000 cases per day
At 0.33% IFR that's 108,000 cases per day
At 0.2% IFR that's 180,000 cases per day

Excess was about 60k v covid 40k when I last compared the two, so can probably add another half to any of those IFR's, for the collateral damage it causes or missed covid deaths. So if people think it's 0.5% IFR for covid, then 0.75% will probably die in total for every covid case, whether that's through covid or delayed treatment/ no treatment for other life threatening ailments.

 

[Statto1]

I know of quite a few that have had "a cold" or "flu", but not had a covid test, but these are not people that are skint, they're on like 60k+. They have been self isolating/ working form home though and not leaving the house, but I still ask them to get tested to help the government with the figures. Doubt they're isolating from their family though.

 

[the_smog_chorus]

I said it weeks and weeks ago the test is garbage, a video was circulating on here that people didn’t have time to watch, surely a short letter makes it clear? Let me help -

The letter states that Matt Hancock's Dept of Health and Social Care ADMITS: "A positive PCR test does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)"

Why keep replying about things relating to the “test”, it carries no credibility.

 

[motownjunk]

I said it weeks and weeks ago the test is garbage, a video was circulating on here that people didn’t have time to watch, surely a short letter makes it clear? Let me help -

The letter states that Matt Hancock's Dept of Health and Social Care ADMITS: "A positive PCR test does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)"

Why keep replying about things relating to the “test”, it carries no credibility.

There is no evidence of this what so ever. If this existed do you not think the newspaper on the left would have been all over it.

 

[Randy]

There is no evidence of this what so ever. If this existed do you not think the newspaper on the left would have been all over it.

No evidence of what?

 

[cliverd]

On the PCR testing, the mass testing in liverpool (which is lateral flow testing) has discovered remarkable few cases despite a huge number of tests being carried out.

This would support the false positives presented by PCR testing.

 

[motownjunk]

On the PCR testing, the mass testing in liverpool (which is lateral flow testing) has discovered remarkable few cases despite a huge number of tests being carried out.

This would support the false positives presented by PCR testing.

Or the lateral flow tests produce lots of false negatives.

 

[Statto1]

I said it weeks and weeks ago the test is garbage, a video was circulating on here that people didn’t have time to watch, surely a short letter makes it clear? Let me help -

The letter states that Matt Hancock's Dept of Health and Social Care ADMITS: "A positive PCR test does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)"

Why keep replying about things relating to the “test”, it carries no credibility.

If you think the test is "garbage" or has "no credibility" because of that line, then by your theory, almost any test or anything that is not perfect, is pointless.

Is a cancer test garbage if the results are not 100% accurate?
What about the tests carried out by aircraft engineers? None of those prove serviceability, so shall we just not carry those tests out too?
What about MOT's, they're not exactly thorough, by some garages, so lets get rid of those as well.
What about exams? They can't assess peoples ability with 100% accuracy, so lets bin those too huh? Lets just have anyone doing any job.
If Juninho gets a 9/10 in the match report, does that make him garbage?

All of those statements are ludicrous, as is your claim of the PCR test being "garbage". I assume every country in the world is using it, do you think they're all "in on it" together?

Nobody is claiming the PCR is 100% accurate, but only someone that does not understand, would claim it needed to be, to be of any use. Of course, the higher the accuracy the better, but it would even be very useful at 75% accuracy, even 50% accuracy, especially when combined with the known symptoms, and who that person has been in contact with. It's pieces of the puzzle so to speak.
In general, most seem to think it's over 90-95% accurate, which is very good, and it's brilliant when combined with known symptoms, who the person has been on contact with etc.

For modelling, even if it picked up 10% of cases, this could still be used to spot trends, if the sample size was large enough (which of course it is).

 

[motownjunk]

No evidence of what?

"I said it weeks and weeks ago the test is garbage, a video was circulating on here that people didn’t have time to watch, surely a short letter makes it clear? Let me help -

The letter states that Matt Hancock's Dept of Health and Social Care ADMITS: "A positive PCR test does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)"

Why keep replying about things relating to the “test”, it carries no credibility. "

That Matt Hancock had said that or that the test was garbage.

 

[cliverd]

Or the lateral flow tests produce lots of false negatives.

False negatives much less likely then positives, later flow test is less sensitive then PCR testing but still working on similar thresholds. PCR is so sensitive it can pick up previous COVID fragments, see Cristiano Ronaldo's three consecutive positive tests over nearly 4 weeks....

 

[1finny]

Just reading that up to late 2019 WHO advice ref pandemics was
* Test and Trace = no point
* Isolation = no point

Then we get a UK projection of 500k deaths.
Maybe we need to look at the projection rather than what we had to do as a result of it being wrong by a factor. of 10.

We got better at projections
80000 cases by Oct 15th (still nowhere near)
4000 deaths per day - using analysis 3 weeks out of date

 

[motownjunk]

False negatives much less likely then positives, later flow test is less sensitive then PCR testing but still working on similar thresholds. PCR is so sensitive it can pick up previous COVID fragments, see Cristiano Ronaldo's three consecutive positive tests over nearly 4 weeks....

Read back what you have written. Less sensitivity almost always means more false negatives.