Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19

[Steeleballz 7,550]

12 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

Just a couple questions.. running through my head atm.

 

It was announced that a CA congressperson was hospitalized with pneumonia after he had some kind of falling accident. Supposedly they tested him and he was COVID negative. He went from serious to critical condition while in the hospital and doesn't sound like he will make it. Is it possible to get a false negative?

 

I remember a couple weeks back a therapist on twitter that was very concerned she had been exposed to a few patients that were infected (one died). She too had pneumonia and struggled to get a test done or any results after that. Eventually they told her she was negative. Her thinking was that they waited too long to test her and that perhaps this could produce a false negative?

 

   False negatives are possible with any test. Most of the testing for Coronavirus is PCR based, so the method generally has fairly low false negative rates. Sometimes in the early stages of infection, the viral load is not high enough to show up as positive yet. There can also be issues with how they collect the sample. Even just with how fast they developed the kits, I'm sure they didn't do the level of QA that they normally would do. That already led to the bad test kits the CDC released.

 

  I'm not sure the exact rate from any given test kit. We have switched kits 4 times now, IIRC, so there is also an inherent risk of error just because of the learning curve of learning a new procedure. 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Steeleballz

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

4 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

Cool man. I'll make sure to tell my parents that if they are unlucky enough to catch it....

 

Alas, I am more worried about you than your parents (only cuz I don't know them tho).  ALL of your family, please stay well...

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

40 minutes ago, arken said:

The US president said it would go down from at the time 15 cases to 0 or simply disappear. How can the president who claims he foresaw this pandemic even before experts saw it coming be so wrong? The MSM derangement kicking in?

The "experts" said for weeks this was not a threat and that exaggerating it was an act of xenophobia by the Trump administration. The WHO ran with this and so did the US media and other networks throughout the west, until defending China in this sense was no longer viable.

 

Then countries ran ads, with help from China, pretending that identifying China as the source of the outbreak, blaming the Chinese government for their incompetence (at best) in its spread from China and weeks of non-transparency, was racism. They'd run ads in Europe, particularly targeting Italy, facilitating the spread of the virus, suggesting that "Chinese people are human" and random people should come up and hug Chinese people wearing masks.

 

China then said the US is where the virus came from. 

 

CNN then ran flattering stories to China saying that China is stepping into the role of world leadership and the Trump administration is destroying America.

 

It's quite clear TDS is what the MSM is selling. You buying?

Edited March 22, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[yuna628 9,716]

1 minute ago, Voice of Reason said:

Alas, I am more worried about you than your parents (only cuz I don't know them tho).  ALL of your family, please stay well...

Oh my husband would be keen on wrapping me in bubble wrap at this point and hiding me away. But statistically men are dying more for some reason they don't understand. Weighing on canceling one hospital appointment.. but I need to keep the most important one and that's at the oncology center which is usually packed with elderly cancer patients. How do I approach that to make them and me feel more comfortable with me being there where we could contaminate each other somehow? Had four more vials of blood taken out of me today, normally packed lab was empty. Phlebotomist says everyone is too scared to come in. Husband made me wear gloves and a mask. Felt silly and even more frazzled. Since I spent a good chunk of last year with dad in the ICU.. and they both check off the marks of 'underlying conditions' category, I'm more than paranoid about them getting sick. 

[arken 4,197]

8 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

The "experts" said for weeks this was not a threat and that exaggerating it was an act of xenophobia by the Trump administration. The WHO ran with this and so did the US media and other networks throughout the west, until defending China in this sense was no longer viable.

 

Then countries ran ads, with help from China, pretending that identifying China as the source of the outbreak, blaming the Chinese government for their incompetence (at best) in its spread from China and weeks of non-transparency, was racism. They'd run ads in Europe, particularly targeting Italy, facilitating the spread of the virus, suggesting that "Chinese people are human" and random people should come up and hug Chinese people wearing masks.

 

China then said the US is where the virus came from. 

 

CNN then ran flattering stories to China saying that China is stepping into the role of world leadership and the Trump administration is destroying America.

 

It's quite clear TDS is what the MSM is selling. You buying?

I’m neither buying MSM’s point blindly nor president’s. Just doing a simple concept. Which one is dangerous? The president saying the number would go down from 15 to zero, everything is in control, no need to worry, infected people can go work and still get better and now we are at 20K and counting up Vs the experts who said It will be hundreds of Ks in WAS state but now at below 2K either because of the steps they took or lack of testing?

[Steeleballz 7,550]

18 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

The "experts" said for weeks this was not a threat and that exaggerating it was an act of xenophobia by the Trump administration. The WHO ran with this and so did the US media and other networks throughout the west, until defending China in this sense was no longer viable.

 

 

 

  The experts did not say that. Many spent too much time listening to people who were not experts. 

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

11 minutes ago, arken said:

I’m neither buying MSM’s point blindly nor president’s. Just doing a simple concept. Which one is dangerous? The president saying the number would go down from 15 to zero, everything is in control, no need to worry, infected people can go work and still get better and now we are at 20K and counting up Vs the experts who said It will be hundreds of Ks in WAS state but now at below 2K either because of the steps they took or lack of testing?

Clearly you're buying the MSM's, hence your argument about the President needing to be someone who predicts how a virus spreads. No person acting rationally would take that statement to the hyper-critical level you did, for obvious reasons.

[arken 4,197]

39 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

Clearly you're buying the MSM's, hence your argument about the President needing to be someone who predicts how a virus spreads. No person acting rationally would take that statement to the hyper-critical level you did, for obvious reasons.

I am not expecting that, i just expected the president would listen to the experts and be prepared as opposed to just downplaying.

 

1 hour ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

The "experts" said for weeks this was not a threat

You mean “so called experts”!!! You can list any name of the real experts who said it was not the threat if you can come up with one.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

50 minutes ago, arken said:

I am not expecting that, i just expected the president would listen to the experts and be prepared as opposed to just downplaying.

 

You mean “so called experts”!!! You can list any name of the real experts who said it was not the threat if you can come up with one.

Ah okay, not the WHO "experts" who agreed with China's "experts" that a travel ban and putting any halt to international travel was unnecessary.

 

Those same China "experts" who said that its not a threat and that treating it like one means they lack confidence in the Chinese government, which as we know, lacking in the confidence of China's ability to handle anything is really bad. Those experts warned that evacuating citizens from these provinces of China would have consequences. The economic impact of China, wealthy elites who cater to them, and protecting China's image was all clearly these health "experts" were concerned about.

 

Some of those "experts" names include people like Xia Guohan, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with the plethora of other experts they oversee that agreed.

 

If you can drop the orange man bad gimmick, you might be able to redirect your ire toward the right people.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[arken 4,197]

21 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

Ah okay, not the WHO "experts" who agreed with China's "experts" that a travel ban and putting any halt to international travel was unnecessary.

 

Those same China "experts" who said that its not a threat and that treating it like one means they lack confidence in the Chinese government, which as we know, lacking in the confidence of China's ability to handle anything is really bad. Those experts warned that evacuating citizens from these provinces of China would have consequences. The economic impact of China, wealthy elites who cater to them, and protecting China's image was all clearly these health "experts" were concerned about.

 

Some of those "experts" names include people like Xia Guohan, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with the plethora of other experts they oversee that agreed.

 

If you can drop the orange man bad gimmick, you might be able to redirect your ire toward the right people.

I got no ire with anybody, the one who has it seems to be one writing essays for one or few sentences responses. Btw I do agree with what the president’s efforts in fighting the virus at this time. 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

2 hours ago, yuna628 said:

Oh my husband would be keen on wrapping me in bubble wrap at this point and hiding me away. But statistically men are dying more for some reason they don't understand. Weighing on canceling one hospital appointment.. but I need to keep the most important one and that's at the oncology center which is usually packed with elderly cancer patients. How do I approach that to make them and me feel more comfortable with me being there where we could contaminate each other somehow? Had four more vials of blood taken out of me today, normally packed lab was empty. Phlebotomist says everyone is too scared to come in. Husband made me wear gloves and a mask. Felt silly and even more frazzled. Since I spent a good chunk of last year with dad in the ICU.. and they both check off the marks of 'underlying conditions' category, I'm more than paranoid about them getting sick. 

I've got some theories, but I don't want to start yet another boring "toxic masculinity" thread.    

 

Tell your hubby I'll ship him a roll of bubble wrap if it helps.  Pretty sure I can score some locally.  But TP, ground beef, paper towels, and hand sanitizer are still outta the question.

 

I KNOW you know I wasn't making light of your parents nor of anyone who is more likely to be affected.  At 77, my father is also pretty high on the list of not-gonna-do-wells if he comes down with it.  I know one person who has had a death from it already, thankfully it's the only one I know (friend of a friend) who hasn't recovered.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

1 hour ago, arken said:

I am not expecting that, i just expected the president would listen to the experts and be prepared as opposed to just downplaying.

 

You mean “so called experts”!!! You can list any name of the real experts who said it was not the threat if you can come up with one.

NOBODY in the world could have known what covid-19 was going to do, not Trump, not epidemiologists, not you nor I.   And I doubt anyone today knows the true impact the virus will have on us in a month or eight (Let's HOPE that we can build an immunity to it before fall).  Maybe I am a fool for thinking it's overblown in the media, but thus far, I haven't seen anything to the contrary, and sadly we won't know for several months yet.  MERS in Korea caused them to re-think the way they treated viruses, and I think they were better suited to handle this current mess than just about anyone.

 

It is my opinion that the media blowing this out of proportion early on, whether it is out of stupidity or a desire to try and ruin Trump is going to ruin many more lives than the virus.  Right now, 344 people have died in the US, and that is horrible.  But how many THOUSANDS of people have lost their jobs, and will soon lose their homes?  The effect on the global economy is likely to far exceed that of SARS.  I hope I am wrong.  Only time will tell.  But I don't think right now, most people are focused on the virus.  Personally, I am much more worried about the economic disaster that is on the horizon.  

[Steeleballz 7,550]

13 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894

 

    Article appears to have been removed for violations of hosting site TOS.

 

   I was trying to check b/c IIRC, he claimed no kids have died from it and I have read about 2 cases now. That wasn't the only thing he got wrong, but alas, no way to check now. 

[TBoneTX 46,125]

5 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

False negatives are possible with any test. Most of the testing for Coronavirus is PCR based, so the method generally has fairly low false negative rates. Sometimes in the early stages of infection, the viral load is not high enough to show up as positive yet. There can also be issues with how they collect the sample. Even just with how fast they developed the kits, I'm sure they didn't do the level of QA that they normally would do. That already led to the bad test kits the CDC released.

 

I'm not sure the exact rate from any given test kit. We have switched kits 4 times now, IIRC, so there is also an inherent risk of error just because of the learning curve of learning a new procedure. 

Yes, and a couple of other possible issues:  (1) several of the symptoms can mimic those of the flu, and (2) confirmation bias might cause deaths (or illnesses) to be attributed to the virus when the "truer" culprint is "influenza-like illness."  (3) How sensitive and specific are the flu tests, and are these given simultaneously to the crowds who are ilning up to be tested for the coronavirus?  (4) Is it possible that the sickest people have both the coronavirus AND another influenza-like illness that's NOT being tested for, or isn't being accounted for in the disease/mortality statistics?

 

I'm too tired to think straight at the moment, so the above may be redundant, but I've not heard anyone talk about these aspects.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

7 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Yes, and a couple of other possible issues:  (1) several of the symptoms can mimic those of the flu, and (2) confirmation bias might cause deaths (or illnesses) to be attributed to the virus when the "truer" culprint is "influenza-like illness."  (3) How sensitive and specific are the flu tests, and are these given simultaneously to the crowds who are ilning up to be tested for the coronavirus?  (4) Is it possible that the sickest people have both the coronavirus AND another influenza-like illness that's NOT being tested for, or isn't being accounted for in the disease/mortality statistics?

 

I'm too tired to think straight at the moment, so the above may be redundant, but I've not heard anyone talk about these aspects.

 

   We can order a respiratory panel that tests for a whole spectrum of bacteria and viruses. Sometimes people come in looking like they have really bad flu, and it ends up being that they have 3 or 4 of the seasonal respiratory viruses at the same time. It's not that uncommon to have several respiratory illnesses at the same time, because catching one puts you at a significantly higher risk for getting others. Often it's a combination of flu and something other virus, so I'm pretty sure there are people out there who have both flu and Covid-19. There are also some really sick people with just Covid-19 though.

 

  If we send out a test for Covid-19 on a patient that is in hospital, we also do the multi-panel to rule out everything else, so eventually they will be able to correlate co-infections with outcomes. I'm not sure there is enough data yet. We still have more Covid-19 tests with results pending than we have with results back. I just heard the rapid test will be available as early as next week.