Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05

This means a PCR+ test by itself should no longer be considers Covid. Must contain a second PCR+ test plus symptoms to count as a Covid case. It’s about time they did this. The metric they were using was stupid and they finally are fixing their mistake. Using a PCR CT of 40 was a mistake from the beginning.

 

You understand that you can't just look at migration patterns in 2020 alone and attribute them to covid regulations, right?

 

hospitalizations are down to 122,700, 8th straight day of droppage,lowest since december 28th, is that good enough to be a trend?

 

Never said that. All I said was it’s interesting that 4 of the top 5 were lockdown states. If you think none of it was covid then we disagree. It wasn’t all lockdowns either, but a contributing factor for sure.

 

The study you posted didn't say what you wanted it to, so now you are switching studies?

 

Yes, it's a trend. The 7 day average for new cases is going down rapidly now. I've stated a number of times now that we are on the downward slope. The holiday season spike was predicted and it happened. We're 3 weeks past the holiday season now and predictably, cases are going down.

 

So, here are questions to be assessed in making policy on the theory that 40 cycles positives sgould be treated as non-infectious or not positive, or cycles should be limited to 35.

Let's start with a person tests who positive with 38 cycles. The person has virus.

Is the virus replicating? How many cycles will it take to find virus the next day?

Should that person be reported negative?

How many of the people who require 40 cycles will require fewer the next day? Or be negative?

What is the person runs another sample? Will that person require 38 cycles?

Are the tests all the same so we can conclude across different tests that 35 cycles should be the threshold?

Of the positive tests in the US, how many tested positive between 35 and 40 cycles?


The COVID-19 PCR Test Is Reliable Despite the Commotion About Ct Values

So this real-time PCR test has a limit of detection. When there is a lot of virus present, the answer it gives is pretty unequivocal. But when there are few viral particles in the sample (because, for example, we just got infected with the virus and it hasn’t had time to make many copies of itself), it will take many, many cycles of amplification before we can detect enough light to see that the virus is there.


When the Ct value is low, it means that there was a lot of starting material (many pages with the sentence we were interested in, or many copies of the coronavirus). When the Ct value is high, it means there was little starting material, so it takes more time to have enough copies so that you can see them.

Different laboratories have set up different PCR tests to look for the coronavirus, using different probe-and-primer combinations to look for different genes in the coronavirus’ genome on different PCR machines. Unsurprisingly, when 26 Ontario laboratories that test for the coronavirus participated in a proficiency test, they saw a variability of Ct values of up to eight cycles across them when testing the same specimen. Samples that are known to be positive and negative for the coronavirus are run alongside the unknown samples, and their behaviour during the run also affects interpretation of the results. This is why reporting the Ct value is not recommended in Canada: on its own, it does not mean much.

The pandemic saw a rise in armchair experts, people who had never stepped foot in a laboratory suddenly learning about PCR and thinking, as in true crime dramas, that they had cracked the case wide open. But the interpretation of PCR tests for the coronavirus relies on a lot more than a single Ct value: it depends on all of the above “chicken soup” variability, plus the type of specimen collected, whether or not samples are pooled in a single well to save on reagents (with positive pools being tested individually afterwards), and on pre-test probability, meaning whether or not the person being tested has symptoms and whether or not they were potentially exposed to the virus. The blind reliance on Ct values unfortunately shows a misunderstanding of the complexities of molecular diagnostics. Ct values are not elementary; they require expertise to interpret.

 

Well to be fair, the new study linked isn’t a study at all, just an article that got its data from the original posted study. May as well have just used the first link twice. It is interesting to note that in the new link the top 4 states for people leaving had taxes as the driving force, not Covid.

 

It seems very clear he does not realize that.

 

No pattern or decent data, but he did have a map with pretty colors and that’s good enough for me.

 

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.

The Timing is amazing.

 

Published Aug. 29, 2020

 

What is amazing about August29?

 

How bout yesterday at roughly inauguration time?
WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05

 

Great stuff in there. Too bad the WHO doesn't agree with you. Just a postive PCR test doesn't mean you have Covid. Which is something i've been arguing for the better part of 9 months. Try reading this again.

WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05

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.

 

Couldn't find the study at first. Here it is to back up what i posted.

2020 U.S. Moving Migration Patterns Report | North American Van Lines

Has there been a trend of people leaving those states? Yes, but I think next year the migration will be even more due to the lockdowns. We will see if that holds up.

 

USA TODAY

So it looks like the US will have about 300k excess deaths in 2020 from their projections(3.2 million versus 2.9 estimate). So accounting for things that went down in 2020(car crash deaths + other things) and what went up(drug overdoses, murders + other things) I find it hard to believe the 400k+ number of covid "deaths" is true. It isn't like people stop dying from other ailments. I want an honest take on it. USAToday states that deaths from 25-44 has had an historic increase. We know that is not due to Covid. The guy from U of Richmond is out of his mind thinking almost 600k excess deaths. My thought is the number is somewhere in the 50-65% range(200-260k) of covid deaths(still a big number for sure). This isn't to diminish it but I feel it's important to have correct data so we can make better policy decisions. We screwed up our schools by not looking at the data. But with the WHO stating the way we are counting a Covid "case" is wrong is a good step. Hopefully we implement that asap. Don't care who gets credit for the pandemic being over. This should be non partisan, but I know that's too hard for some people to handle.

 

You can:
https://www.gatorcountry.com/swampgas/search/128120299/?q=read+your+own+link&o=date&c[node]=23

 

All head butting aside, you have had a good grasp on this things numbers wise. In your opinion have we seen the worst of Covid-19 and can we seriously start to look forward with a bit of optimism (Vax's etc)?

 

Well, it's a pretty amazing date for people born on that day.