New test for Coronavirus

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

 

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.


on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.


The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.


The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.

on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


> Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.

The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.

The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse. Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China. This is one
area where the US really doesn't want to be the world
leader.

It has already infected our Prime Minister and next
King (BoJo and Prince Charles).

NewsThump's response was “Get used to idea of also
losing unloved ones”

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/03/20 18:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.


on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.


The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.


The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Look at the trajectory and timescales, not the absolute.

Surely you remember playing with analogue meters; you
could get a quick feel for the final value by seeing
how fast the meter's needle accelerated to the right.
That was especially true with ballistic galvanometers
when measuring charge.

Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?

It is as believable as anything Trump says.
A good test will be to see what happens when they
relax restrictions. Already they've undone the
re-opening of their cinemas - which suggests a
degree of cockup in their response.

 

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:50:35 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 18:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.


on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.


The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.


The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Look at the trajectory and timescales, not the absolute.

All viral epidemics start out exponential. People act like they never
knew that. Gosh, maybe they didn't.

Surely you remember playing with analogue meters; you
could get a quick feel for the final value by seeing
how fast the meter's needle accelerated to the right.
That was especially true with ballistic galvanometers
when measuring charge.

I don't remember the needle on my meters ever swinging a couple of
hundred feet. Something seemed to stop them first.

Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?

It is as believable as anything Trump says.

That's not an answer.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

<https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/>

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 1:53:15 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 02:13:05 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 3:19:27 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 1:38:40 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:

<snip>

In the meantime we have no reason to believe there are numbers of infected and recovered in the US that would make much difference in anything. To get people back to work will require many millions of these tests.

Larkin is pumped up about this test because he wants to confirm is theory that half the country already has had the disease. That's not possible for many different reasons which he wants to ignore.

It's obvious that you don't want it to be approved.

He hasn't expressed any preference about that. He doesn't think that it is a high priority right now. In reality it doesn't need to be "approved" - in the UK they've ordered three million test kits, so it's fairly obviously already "approved" - you can't order something until has been "approved".

Exactly. The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population. They are
afraid that this panic might be almost over. Afraid of not being
afraid.

This may be obvious to John Larkin, but would look like a totally nonsensical assertion to anybody with any sense at all.

There's a lot of perfectly rational anxiety around, but not a lot of panic.

Finding out that half the population had already been infected and recovered without noticing the infection would indeed be comforting, but it's extremely unlikely to have actually happened - as John Larkin would be aware if he had a functional brain.

Of all the many possible trajectories of this infection, from hyped
cold to 1918++, they are rootin' for the worst ones. They enjoy this.

As far as I can see they are rooting for the South Korean trajectory, but are well aware that few governments are good enough to deliver it.

Donald Trump's administration seems to be even further behind the eight ball than the ayatollas in Iran.

The US hasn't had more deaths than China yet, but that is now only a matter of time. They had several good examples that they could have followed, but they have still contrived to get themselves into a full-fledged epidemic which isn't yet showing any signs of coming under control.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 7:43:28 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:50:35 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 27/03/20 18:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

<snip>

Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.

The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.

The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Look at the trajectory and timescales, not the absolute.

All viral epidemics start out exponential. People act like they never
knew that. Gosh, maybe they didn't.

In fact everybody knows it, and you are making an extremely stupid claim.

Surely you remember playing with analogue meters; you
could get a quick feel for the final value by seeing
how fast the meter's needle accelerated to the right.
That was especially true with ballistic galvanometers
when measuring charge.

I don't remember the needle on my meters ever swinging a couple of
hundred feet. Something seemed to stop them first.

A rather less-than-inteligent response.

Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?

It is as believable as anything Trump says.

That's not an answer.

Not an answer John Larkin wants to take seriously.

In reality China is blaming its 50-odd new cases a day on Chinese nationals being repatriated from places where the disease is epidemic, taken there by colleagues of the people now coming back.

That is a credible claim. The fact that China is now letting migrant workers go back to their jobs from other parts of China (including Wuhan) tends to support it. They could - in theory - be lying, but what purpose would such a lie serve?

Trump lies more or less non-stop - as any fact-checking service will tell you.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 11:38:45 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.

Why not wait and see?

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 28.03.20 um 13:38 schrieb jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.

In .de, we had a lab capacity for 500,000 tests last week +-3dB
depending on source, and they are calling for more.

Look at the death rate here to see the difference that it makes if you
track the contacts of suspects.

That works only when you start early before the numbers grow too large.
Sorry, your government has slept/downplayed it too long.

Gerhard

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 12:13:42 AM UTC+11, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:

Am 28.03.20 um 13:38 schrieb jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.



In .de, we had a lab capacity for 500,000 tests last week +-3dB
depending on source, and they are calling for more.

Look at the death rate here to see the difference that it makes if you
track the contacts of suspects.

That works only when you start early before the numbers grow too large.
Sorry, your government has slept/downplayed it too long.

Germany isn't doing all that well.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/

Total cases per million population is 637, twice the US 316. Of course the US is more spread out, and their Covid-19 infections aren't - at the moment..

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 9:10:51 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 11:38:45 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.

Why not wait and see?

Why wait when Larkin can panic now?

--

Rick C.

++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 14:13:36 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de>
wrote:

Am 28.03.20 um 13:38 schrieb jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 1:51:32 AM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new tool is called the “Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test” and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/new-coronavirus-test-can-have-results-within-hours-see-how-it-works/

Abbott Labs has been approved for its new test, and will start shipping them next week.

https://conservativefighters.org/news/fda-approves-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-coronavirus/

That sounds like a live virus test. Imagine what shipping 50,000 tests
a day will do the case statistics.



In .de, we had a lab capacity for 500,000 tests last week +-3dB
depending on source, and they are calling for more.

Look at the death rate here to see the difference that it makes if you
track the contacts of suspects.

That works only when you start early before the numbers grow too large.
Sorry, your government has slept/downplayed it too long.

Gerhard

If one can believe the numbers on the Johns Hopkins site the total
death count/population for the USA is now 5.2 PPM. For Germany, it's
4.9.

Different testing rates of course make all the numbers nonsense.

This is the first piece I've seen that addresses the problems with
testing rates.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/821958435/why-death-rates-from-coronavirus-can-be-deceiving

I think someone here has made some of those same points.

California has discovered that it is far behind New York in test
availability, and is scrambling mightily to catch up.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Flyguy]

On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 11:50:46 AM UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 27/03/20 18:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.


on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.


The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.


The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Look at the trajectory and timescales, not the absolute.

Surely you remember playing with analogue meters; you
could get a quick feel for the final value by seeing
how fast the meter's needle accelerated to the right.
That was especially true with ballistic galvanometers
when measuring charge.


Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?

It is as believable as anything Trump says.
A good test will be to see what happens when they
relax restrictions. Already they've undone the
re-opening of their cinemas - which suggests a
degree of cockup in their response.

No, China has been lying since the day they locked up the doctor who first reported the crisis. Actions speak louder than words when they:

1. Kept the CDC out of country.
2. Removed a Chinese paper “conducted by the South China University of Technology, [that] concluded that the coronavirus ‘probably’ originated in the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention”
3. Kicked reporters from the NYT, WaPo and the WSJ out of the country.

Communists lie: consistently, repeatedly, forcefully and reliably. That is just what they do - get used to it.

 

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 14:59:31 -0700 (PDT), Flyguy <tomseim2g@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 11:50:46 AM UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 27/03/20 18:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:00:31 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 17:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:06:47 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:38:56 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/03/20 14:53, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The usual gang of downers obviously don't want an antibody
test to be available or used on the general population.

That's a silly accusation that does you no credit.

They note that such tests aren't available yet, but that
they will be very valuable when they are available.

See post below.

Below what?

If you mean a post from Whit3rd, again it isn't he
doesn't want a test, it is that he wants a statistically
useful testing regime.

That seems sensible to me. A meaningless test is worse
than no test, since it encourages spurious actions.

Don't you think that a thousand or so antibody tests

AFAIK there is no such reliable test at the moment,
so the question is moot.


on random US
citizens would be statistically suggestive of the overall
had-the-infection rate? To tell us if it's 2% or 50%? 10,000 tests?
100K? Rather not know?

Random sampling works well *provided* there is a uniform
distribution; the variance and confidence interval can
be calculated.

Initially infection outbreaks will be very patchy,
not uniform. Hence it will be difficult if not impossible
to assess the confidence interval. In that case
the numbers will be no more use than random number - and
will probably /be/ random numbers of the form 8 +-15


Test 1000 a week and the data keeps getting better.

More is better, but there is a threshold before
more becomes useful.


The current PCR test only flags live viruses, and it is heavily
targeted at very sick people with symptoms suggestive of C19. Testing
is ramping up. We have no idea of the denominator of the death rate
from this virus. No good idea of the numerator, actually.

That's true in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK.

However, all official statistics and prognostications
explicitly acknowledge that, and factor it into the
/range/ of predictions made.


The 2009 flu pandemic infected about a billion people and killed a few
hundred thousand, but didn't get the press or the noisy analysis of
C19.

This is going to be worse.

Possibly. The Hopkins world case count is 580K so far, which is
(computes furiously) 0.06% of a billion.

Look at the trajectory and timescales, not the absolute.

Surely you remember playing with analogue meters; you
could get a quick feel for the final value by seeing
how fast the meter's needle accelerated to the right.
That was especially true with ballistic galvanometers
when measuring charge.


Already the US, with <25% of
the population, has more cases than China.

As if! Do you believe that China is actually averaging about 50 cases
a day now?

It is as believable as anything Trump says.
A good test will be to see what happens when they
relax restrictions. Already they've undone the
re-opening of their cinemas - which suggests a
degree of cockup in their response.

No, China has been lying since the day they locked up the doctor who first reported the crisis. Actions speak louder than words when they:

1. Kept the CDC out of country.
2. Removed a Chinese paper “conducted by the South China University of Technology, [that] concluded that the coronavirus ‘probably’ originated in the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention”
3. Kicked reporters from the NYT, WaPo and the WSJ out of the country.

Communists lie: consistently, repeatedly, forcefully and reliably. That is just what they do - get used to it.

That's a special case. All governments will lie unless someone is able
to catch them. In a communist dictatorship, nobody is.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"