Coronavirus

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

[Cygnia]

NYT: Singapore, Former Virus-Beater, Shows Resurgence Could Hit U.S

[Cancer]

When you're going to be testing large numbers of people with a diagnostic test, it is really important that the test not give you many false positives (this is having good specificity); the more so when the prevalance of the disease is low.  That last isn't a problem here.  But it remains a problem when you are groping around looking for patterns in disease presentation.  Someone with a false positive test (if you accept the test result, and you don't do any follow-on checks) looks exactly like an "asymptomatic case".

 

If your test has a specificity of 90%, then 10% of the people you test who don't actually have the disease are wrongly labeled as having it.  If you test 10,000 well individuals with that test, voila!  There's 1000 false positives.

 

The antibody tests seem to suffer from poor specificity.

[Pariah]

11 hours ago, Cygnia said:

 

 

Damn straight.

[Lord Liaden]

On 4/19/2020 at 2:01 PM, whitekeys said:

Hey y'all. Didn't really bother reading the whole thread but it seems to have got slightly off topic. I wanted to respond to the original topic, apologies if that's jarring. Have there been many responses from Canada? I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Things here are pretty good, I'd have to say. Most of the known cases for Canada come from the province of Quebec (for whatever reason, it really spread quickly there at the beginning of April) and the other big cities, Toronto and Vancouver. In Winnipeg, a city of ~750,000, greater metro, we've only had 250 total cases, and I heard recently we only have 10 people in the hospital seeking care right now. Other are most likely quarantined somewhere else. There is talk of lifting some of the restrictions soon. 

 

Standard emergency medical orders have been put in place, limiting the number of people that can gather in a public place to 5 or 10, and non-critical businesses have been shut down, which is a whole lot of services and retail.

 

I still get together with some of my friends who aren't taking social distancing too seriously, and getting out and about. I have bee playing boardgames weekly, and would really really love a roleplaying game group, but alas, no such luck.

 

I'm in the Greater Toronto area, and Ontario has had far more cases, but obviously has a far larger population than Manitoba, as well as being the recipient of more travel. There will be hot spots in particular regions of the country due to various factors. However, I also noticed that the Manitoba government has extended the state of emergency just today, which I consider prudent. This virus is highly contagious and can spread very rapidly. Keep in mind that when your neighbor's house is burning, yours isn't safe just because it hasn't caught fire yet.

 

If your friends are "out and about" and not taking warnings seriously, I would recommend keeping your distance from them for a while. If they tease or mock you, remember that that's the worst that could happen if they're right, which is nothing compared to what could happen if they're wrong.

[Lord Liaden]

Deleted double post.

[assault]

I have a cousin who thinks she's visiting me on Friday.

 

She lives in another town, and will be here (Toowoomba, Queensland, under Darling Downs in that link) that day.

 

I'll give her the things she is coming to pick up.

 

She's not coming into my house.

 

Basically, she thinks that it is OK to wander around the place randomly intruding into peoples' social distancing. She's a disease carrier, whether she has it or not.

Her siblings think she's an idiot too.

I was reluctant to add this, but "country cousin", naturally.

[Badger]

4 hours ago, Bazza said:

 

Yeah, I am lucky I go to one who is semi-retired.  With fewer customers in general (plus within mile+ of my house).  The worst thing I have to deal with his one of the 2 dogs requiring me to pet him while waiting.

[Badger]

2 hours ago, Cancer said:

When you're going to be testing large numbers of people with a diagnostic test, it is really important that the test not give you many false positives (this is having good specificity); the more so when the prevalance of the disease is low.  That last isn't a problem here.  But it remains a problem when you are groping around looking for patterns in disease presentation.  Someone with a false positive test (if you accept the test result, and you don't do any follow-on checks) looks exactly like an "asymptomatic case".

 

If your test has a specificity of 90%, then 10% of the people you test who don't actually have the disease are wrongly labeled as having it.  If you test 10,000 well individuals with that test, voila!  There's 1000 false positives.

 

The antibody tests seem to suffer from poor specificity.

 

That is a big worry that has been lingering in my mind.  Are we getting false positives?

 

Note: and another consequence, is people who have come into contact, might panic, in the end, a needless panic.

[Old Man]

"The economy is clearly in ruins here"

 

 

 

[ScottishFox]

I work with a theater chain and I can say that our ticket sales are down around 100% since Mid-March.

 

Some industries are getting hit harder than others.

[Cancer]

58 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

That is a big worry that has been lingering in my mind.  Are we getting false positives?

 

Note: and another consequence, is people who have come into contact, might panic, in the end, a needless panic.

 

I think you have to take as absolutely certain that we are getting false positives.  What we don't have a good handle on is how many there are.  The pros know this, and this aggravating uncertainty is one reason why different peoples' projections and models vary.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

 

Yeah, I am lucky I go to one who is semi-retired.  With fewer customers in general (plus within mile+ of my house).  The worst thing I have to deal with his one of the 2 dogs requiring me to pet him while waiting.

 

I've been cutting my own hair for nearly five years. The barber I used to frequent retired, and I couldn't find another who cut my hair the way I like, so I bought a home barber kit and started doing it myself.

 

I've gotten better over the years, but am still far from professional level. But it turns out looking more or less as I want.

[Lord Liaden]

1 minute ago, Cancer said:

 

I think you have to take as absolutely certain that we are getting false positives.  What we don't have a good handle on is how many there are.  The pros know this, and this aggravating uncertainty is one reason why different peoples' projections and models vary.

 

I think I'm more worried about false negatives.

[Badger]

11 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I think I'm more worried about false negatives.

 

well, yeah.  but false positives are underrated in how much havoc they can cause.

[Pariah]

 COVID-19 is making me cranky.

 

Mostly because of all the people I read about who aren't taking it seriously enough.

[Old Man]

But it's just a flu that only affects elderly Asians!  They're not people anyway!  /s

 

Meanwhile, American is on track to hit 1M cases in six days, and 60,000 deaths in ten.  With reopening happening now, we can expect to start seeing rates increase during the first week of May.

[Bazza]

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