Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Well, you misrepresented my post. I did not maintain any position. My thread quoted the scientists at McGill (which is a prominent Canadian University), who pointed out that the 35 or 40 cycle discussion is misleading because of the difference between different PCR tests, among the reasons cited.

So, if you want engagement, please truthfully represent what I post. That involves reading the links and addressing what they say.

Now, you have advocated for a limit of cycles to 35. Meaning that every test that would find virus between 36-40 would be deemed negative.

And, your argument is that the WHO agrees with that and disagrees with me.

But, you also misread the WHO in support of your argument about 35-40 cycles. See, if you read the WHO again, it says nothing about 35 or 40 cycles.

Nor does it sat that tests that find virus in 40 cycles or higher number of cycles are false positives.

What the WHO says is that tests requiring higher cycles have to be repeated because the fewer cycles, the lower the viral load in the sample tested. So, the test should be repeated. Presumably, the number of cycles where the test needs to be repeated varies from test to test, because (as McGill points out), the tests are different.

Can you intuit why the tests should be repeated?

I submit one reason would be that the virus starts out at lower loads and replicates. So, if you test very early, you might just be catching the virus at an early stage. And, if you repeat it, replicating virus might then be found at lower levels.

I submit that another reason is that the distribution of virus might not be even across the are swabbed. So, a second test would eliminate that.

Another reason might be that the prior test caught fragments.

Because in all instances, finding virus between 36 and 40 cycles finds virus.

Of course, in all instances you want a cycle level that ensures that all potentially infected and infectious people are captured, so you don't want to make policy that allows for false negatives.

So, then, since you advocate

So again, you want policy made on a cycle number of 35, then answer the questions I asked. Because policy is made based on nuances of science, not opinions gleaned from misleading assumptions.

 

What a terrible argument. There is zero data showing schools are increasing Covid outbreaks. The rest of what yuh said is partisan drivel. Good effort though.

 

Keep making up crap, it seems some lemmings on here actually believe the BS you spew.

 

Sad to hear about the spread there. Miami-Dade schools are open.

I have not heard breakdowns between teacher and others here. But, then, we are still having more than 2000 new cases every day here.

How is the culture in Cobb with respect to masks? Because community spread would include kids getting it, and then spreading it silently. And, teachers in environments with high viral loads. Even with masks on.

This poster does not have a weird agenda. It is the right wing, non-science agenda. The poster does not read studies and argues the wrong conclusions from studies and position statements. As for schools, at one time he posted a position statement that the APA had offered, and then withdrew from. After the APA withdrew.

I don't engage with that poster much, but when I posted about the vaccine supply problems and said it wasn't DeSantis' fault, he just misrepresented my position.

And, he was not posting at the beginning here. He literally made up a reason why these posters said what they did which, we know, is not supported by the early posts.

 

Keep trying, but it’s a flawed argument. The WHO is now recommending just testing positive isn’t a “case”. Need to have symptoms as well. Too many false positives(PCR over 35). It’s ok to say you were wrong, like you were with schools. It’s cool, no big deal.

 

There is no peer reviewed study showing schools are increasing Covid. Keep trying though, the other Coronabros are eating it up.

 

Here is the study posted by @NavyGator93 that you ignored. And you also ignored the CDC's statement I posted.

And, spare us your non-stop insults.

I pasted in Navy's statement.

NavyGator93 said: ↑
Coronabro.
The alt right really does suck at humor. Covidiots is a much funnier and appropriate term.

COVID cases among teachers appear to be rising. What does that mean?

Links in the article point to the study from Brown showing teacher rate is actually higher than community which wasn’t the case in November.
Data like this will always be muddied due to a hundred reasons but here you go.

 

I quoted the CDC in the link you are responding to. Given the evidence referenced by the CDC that kids have viral loads equal to adults, there is zero reason to believe that the virus does not spread among kids or to adults. Because the virus spreads; it has nothing to do with the age of the host.

 

What part of appear is confusing to you? Making some wild accusations about numbers is garbage. IF there was widespread Covid breakouts because of schools, I’m confident the NYT’s would have each and every occurrence. That’s what you don’t get.

 

dude, stop, you lost the argument. Kids aren’t spreading Covid. Go look at California for a case study. No on person schooling versus Florida who mostly has in person schooling. The data is obvious. Just like the data on lockdowns wont work. Not only has California caught and passed Florida in Covid numbers, but they decimated their job numbers compared to Florida. Schools being closed will be the greatest policy blunder in the last 40+ years.

 

Provide a quote where I said what you claim. I will wait. Or are you just making shit up?

Also, if people were wrong on schools going remote (different from being closed you hypothesize) or delaying in person teaching, the downside is a delay in education. Being wrong on the virus has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Is that "the game" you want to play - roll dice on human lives?

You apparently fail to understand that experts recommend courses of action based upon the best available data. Sometimes it is not precisely accurate, but pretending it is just another opinion is what killed many people.

 

So we can agree on a set of facts, and to illustrate that your representation of the WHO's position is false, here is a link to what the WHO said and below that, a paste in.

It is consistent with what McGill said and does not say anything that you represented.

WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05

Product type: Nucleic acid testing (NAT) technologies that use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of SARS-CoV-2

Date: 13 January 2021

WHO-identifier: 2020/5, version 2

Target audience: laboratory professionals and users of IVDs.

Purpose of this notice: clarify information previously provided by WHO. This notice supersedes WHO Information Notice for In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Device (IVD) Users 2020/05 version 1, issued 14 December 2020.

Description of the problem: WHO requests users to follow the instructions for use (IFU) when interpreting results for specimens tested using PCR methodology.

Users of IVDs must read and follow the IFU carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is recommended by the manufacturer.

WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.

WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.

Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.

 

There are plenty of peer reviewed studies as to how this virus spreads. There is no rationale science that supports that something happens to the virus inside a school kid or in a schoolhouse that would cause the virus to not spread.

And, no reason to do a study, particularly given the widespread community spread throughout the country.

 

The data was available to open schools over the summer. It’s why European countries opened their schools. We played politics unfortunately at the kids expense.

 

Stop. So now it’s “we don’t need a study” to prove schools should be closed. Go look at Europe. Look at Florida and look at California. Schools being closed in Cali aren’t helping. I know you know this but don’t want to admit it. It’s like the Trump idiots who believe he can’t do wrong, only you and the Governors are playing politics with kids futures.

 

COVID cases among teachers appear to be rising. What does that mean?

From the Brown U study posted by Navy:

In New York, Texas, and a slice of the rest of the country where data is available, teachers and other staff where school buildings are open have higher COVID infection rates than their surrounding communities.

Critically, the data does not show whether teachers caught the virus in schools, or offer definitive answers about the risks of school reopening. It’s possible the results reflect more widespread testing among teachers, and the evidence that remote teachers have lower infection rates is mixed. But the latest data complicates our understanding of the risks of school reopening.

“The fact that the staff rates are growing at a faster rate than the community rates is something we should be paying attention to,” said Emily Oster, the Brown University researcher who spearheaded the analysis and collection of this data.

In November, Oster pointed to data showing that New York teachers were no more likely to have COVID than others in their community. That is no longer the case in New York,

 

You are again taking out of context what I said. I also linked the Brown study, which shows a grater incidence of spread in teachers teaching in person and remotely where data is available.

And, If the the virus is in someone, it spreads from contact. We know that. And the CDC says that kids get virus at loads comparable to adults.

And, the spread in California does not mean that closing schools is not working. It means that there is community spread.

 

Maybe look up asymptotic spread and do some research. Might educate yourself.

 

I have posted data point after data point on school reopening. The data is clear. Only unions who want to keep teachers from having to do their jobs are fighting this. Go look at Europe and do some research, because I know deep down you know schools shlould be open but are just arguing to argue.

 

You are quite sick to argue that unions are fighting to "not do their jobs" versus trying to do their job educating kids while understanding death from this virus. Delusional at best, psychotic actually.