Coronavirus General Discussion (no politics, no flamewars!)

soeren wrote in post #19046709
My youngest son start up at school today and the politicians are negotiating removal of more restrictions. The infection rate has dropped to 0,6 through our social distancing strategi so now is time for controlled immunizing of the danish population

...using a vaccine of what (uncertain) effectivity and what origin?
Here in US there is not yet any vaccine approved by FDA against SARS-CoV-2 virus. They cannot even find an FDA cleared antibody confirmation test, let alone a vaccine.
For the lack of an antibody test and lack of a vaccine, we cannot even begin to guess when the Social Distancing requirements might be eased...some academic epidemiologists are saying we will need masks into 2022!

And then the developing nations need vaccine, too, or else we have travellers from those places coming and infecting the developed nations, until truly herd immunity has been accomplished.

Eddie wrote in post #19046882
After all this BSOD talk I ended up getting the first one ive had in years this morning!

Uh-oh, another outbreak?!

drmaxx wrote in post #19046817
The current estimation is, that in many places we have about 5 times more infected people then reported (see estimation here: https://cmmid.github.i​o …global_cfr_esti​mates.html). The absolute numbers mean diddly-squat and can not be compared with each other. The only thing interesting are the relative changes of these reportings. If the numbers of test go up, but the number of reported cases go down, then this is probably a very good sign that the measures to combat the spread of COVID are working.

The 'current estimation' today is nothing more than an educated GUESS, which cannot be substantiated.
After all there is no accurate FDA cleared test for SARS-CoV-2, as some of the kits previously OK'd turned out to be flawed tests!

digital paradise wrote in post #19046871
I haven't watched them for a while but I should again because the other day someone attacked me with a banana.

I hope you were not injured. And did they throw it at you, in order to not be in violation with Social Distancing orders?

Wilt wrote in post #19047161
I hope you were not injured. And did they throw it at you, in order to not be in violation with Social Distancing orders?

Not too bad. I slipped on the peel.

Wilt wrote in post #19047155
...using a vaccine of what (uncertain) effectivity and what origin?
Here in US there is not yet any vaccine approved by FDA against SARS-CoV-2 virus. They cannot even find an FDA cleared antibody confirmation test, let alone a vaccine.
For the lack of an antibody test and lack of a vaccine, we cannot even begin to guess when the Social Distancing requirements might be eased...some academic epidemiologists are saying we will need masks into 2022!

And then the developing nations need vaccine, too, or else we have travellers from those places coming and infecting the developed nations, until truly herd immunity has been accomplished.

Wilt-

What do you mean by an "FDA cleared antibody confirmation test"? According to the link below, there are something like 50 to 70 labs who have met the FDA's rather low bar for such tests:
https://www.fda.gov …-sars-cov-2#offeringtests
(Click on this dropdown: Section IV.C of the Policy for Diagnostic Tests for Coronavirus Disease-2019? Q: What serology tests are being offered under the policy outlined in Section IV.D of the Policy for Diagnostic Tests for Coronavirus Disease-2019? )

Capn Jack wrote in post #19047166
Wilt-

What do you mean by an "FDA cleared antibody confirmation test"? According to the link below, there are something like 50 to 70 labs who have met the FDA's rather low bar for such tests:
https://www.fda.gov …-sars-cov-2#offeringtests
(Click on this dropdown: Section IV.C of the Policy for Diagnostic Tests for Coronavirus Disease-2019? Q: What serology tests are being offered under the policy outlined in Section IV.D of the Policy for Diagnostic Tests for Coronavirus Disease-2019? )

Cap'n Jack, if you ignore the 'FDA cleared' portion (so we do not get mired in how testing actually is approved), and pay attention to what you yourself have stated, "met the FDA's rather low bar", that is the crux of the problem.
On yesterday's broadcast TV news here in California, the news casts on multiple networks (not associated with one another) all made the point about the 'lack of an accurate test' for antibodies, in combination with the lack of a vaccine, as being key elements. Not mentioned was that even if we had a reliable test for antibodies, we have no real quanification of how long the antibodies will remain present in the body, and if that will at all ensure a level of immunity!

The usual regulatory steps are being waived for expediency reasons.

"The States and territories listed below have notified FDA that they choose to use this flexibility to expedite COVID-19 testing. "

Wilt wrote in post #19047178
Cap'n Jack, if you ignore the 'FDA cleared' portion (so we do not get mired in how testing actually is approved), and pay attention to what you yourself have stated, "met the FDA's rather low bar", that is the crux of the problem.
On yesterday's broadcast TV news here in California, the news casts on multiple networks (not associated with one another) all made the point about the 'lack of an accurate test' for antibodies, in combination with the lack of a vaccine, as being key elements. Not mentioned was that even if we had a reliable test for antibodies, we have no real quanification of how long the antibodies will remain present in the body, and if that will at all ensure a level of immunity!

The usual regulatory steps are being waived by the FDA for expediency reasons.

"The States and territories listed below have notified FDA that they choose to use this flexibility to expedite COVID-19 testing. "

Thanks for the explanation. I, too, didn't want to get mired in the details, and I'm glad you read my post. The "rather low bar" simply saying to the FDA that "the test works".

digital paradise wrote in post #19046871
I haven't watched them for a while but I should again because the other day someone attacked me with a banana.

I hope they didn't stick it in your exhaust pipe!

digital paradise wrote in post #19047163
Not too bad. I slipped on the peel.

reminds me of mario kart

John Sheehy wrote in post #19046916
Even though only 19% test positive, the other 81% are not being tested randomly, but rather, because they are symptomatic of something with similar symptoms. Logically, these are mostly people that are most likely to show symptoms from any virus, so this 19:81 ratio can not be used to extrapolate the asymptomatic, infected percentage of a population, if we don't know the histogram of severity of each virus. One virus could have 85% people symptomatic, and another, 25%.

John, OTOH consider the outcome of testing 92% of the crew assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt...the number of Negative tests in that sample population is about 84%, and the number of Positive tests in that sample population is about 16%. So the 84% testing Negative is from a tested population largely confined to sea duty with each other! Of the 16% who tested Positive from the USS Roosevelt, 55% of that group were asymptomatic.

Wilt, from what I've seen of your posts is that you're claiming the FDA hasn't approved antibody tests with COVID-19, "let alone vaccines". You do realize vaccines are quite different and do indeed have quite longer period of developing/testing/pro​duction? Of course there are no vaccines being indicative now, but I have seen that there are quite a few in development/ and given situation, I'm sure one would be fast tracked (yet fastest hope for that would be 12-18 months). When it comes to "fast" antibody tests, they have already been approved by the FDA but there's still issues of availability (from what I've heard from medical sources, they are reliable, but that there will still be issues of mass testing). Abbott is the main US antibody test starting to ship now, but I've also seen that there may be an option of other outside countries being available (depending on politics).

davesrose wrote in post #19047253
Wilt, from what I've seen of your posts is that you're claiming the FDA hasn't approved antibody tests with COVID-19, "let alone vaccines". You do realize vaccines are quite different and do indeed have quite longer period of developing/testing/pro​duction? Of course there are no vaccines being indicative now, but I have seen that there are quite a few in development/ and given situation, I'm sure one would be fast tracked (yet fastest hope for that would be 12-18 months). When it comes to "fast" antibody tests, they have already been approved by the FDA but there's still issues of availability (from what I've heard from medical sources, they are reliable, but that there will still be issues of mass testing). Abbott is the main US antibody test starting to ship now, but I've also seen that there may be an option of other outside countries being available (depending on politics).

Well aware of the lengthly process to get vaccines on the market.

Stanford is also developing an antibody test, as well as a number of other sources in the US.
The FDA document that someone linked is strong evlidence that in the case of the antibody test, FDA has relinquished authority in the matter to the States.

On the topic of reliability of blood tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies...
https://www.usatoday.c​om …public-health/2981574001/
...so 'the FDA will review the antibody tests in light of accuracy concerns raised by the Association of Public Health Laboratories, but the tests remain on the market.' (reported USA Today, 4/15/2020)

Interesting to learn that Abbott is about to begin shipment of antibody testing, in addition to their somewhat recent start of 5 minute infection Positive tests.

Wilt wrote in post #19047155
...using a vaccine of what (uncertain) effectivity and what origin?
Here in US there is not yet any vaccine approved by FDA against SARS-CoV-2 virus. They cannot even find an FDA cleared antibody confirmation test, let alone a vaccine.
For the lack of an antibody test and lack of a vaccine, we cannot even begin to guess when the Social Distancing requirements might be eased...some academic epidemiologists are saying we will need masks into 2022!

And then the developing nations need vaccine, too, or else we have travellers from those places coming and infecting the developed nations, until truly herd immunity has been accomplished.

Vaccine????? Im talking a controlled run of Corona through the population. Though now they say we can wait for the vaccine whenever that will be. Optimists say september-october others say a year or maybe more.

Wilt wrote in post #19047160
The 'current estimation' today is nothing more than an educated GUESS, which cannot be substantiated.

"Only death and taxes are certain" the rest are more or less educated guesses.... I do think it is useful to know, if there are 10 or 100 times more undetected cases out there.

Wilt wrote in post #19047160
After all there is no accurate FDA cleared test for SARS-CoV-2, as some of the kits previously OK'd turned out to be flawed tests!

As a consequence we underestimate the number of cases - that's the reason why modelling (educated guesses) is useful. The false positive rate by the way is really low. False negative seems to be substantial (rumors go from 5 to 30 %; but I've not seen data about this issue) - with or without flawed tests.