Coronavirus

Out of context: Reply #1538

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  • shapesalad5

    All this BS about how half the UK population may already have coronavirus. Right yes, but:

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coro…

    "As of 9am on 25 March 2020, a total of 97,019 people have been tested, of which 87,490 were confirmed negative and 9,529 were confirmed positive."

    And those tested were ones showing symptoms. So more likely to actually have it. So you'd expect at least 30% positive if that theory were true.

    Can we stop peddling this nonsense. It was a theory based on a model and full of assumptions. Yet it's reported and debated as fact. Just do the maths and you can see it's not true.

    • I suppose it helps them get people to stay home to focus on things like this, even if they are wrong, which would seem to be the case.webazoot
    • Who knows what the actual numbers are, that theory may well be nonsense. However should keep in mind, you're only going to test positive if you currently haveyuekit
    • symptoms of the virus. And even then, you may still test negative anyway.yuekit
    • Does the test show if you had it 3 weeks ago and had recovered? I honestly don't know. But I agree, almost no one read the math on that model.nb
    • no, it doesn't nb. the idea is that most would now test negative and we need to test for antibodies. also if 'those tested were ones showing symptoms' it justkingsteven
    • shows the prevalence of illness, influenza and other strains of coronavirus. what's more the testing itself could contribute to the spread amongst the elderlykingsteven
    • the public reaction to the news of the virus could contribute to its exponential growth pattern. that's why reporting it as "half the uk has had it" is sokingsteven
    • irresponsible. but the study seems as solid as the accepted view and actually supports the same measure to tackle growth and safeguarding of hospital capacitykingsteven
    • tbh when a study comes out of oxford authored by over 10 leading epidemiologists and suggests the public may have a simplified view of how viruses spreadkingsteven
    • it's probably good that our reaction is side with the more grim outcome (predicted with 13 year undocumented code), but i wouldn't call it BSkingsteven
    • Depends what you think BS means, I intended it as 'Brilliant Science'.shapesalad
    • :Dkingsteven
    • My point in posting that article originally was not that I agreed with it necessarily...but rather to point out that "the experts" are all over the map.yuekit
    • The quality of the test also factors. It could be the tests that were administered simply didn't work. It happened in the US (see the article posted ...Continuity
    • ... elsewhere from The Atlantic).Continuity
    • And given that your Boris is just about as adept at this whole crisis management thing as his mate Trump is, it wouldn't surprise me if those tests were ...Continuity
    • ... simply worthless.Continuity
    • Apparently tests worldwide are quite unreliable. Large numbers of false negative results.yuekit
    • The Neil Ferguson guy BTW, is now predicting 20,000 deaths or "substantially lower" in the UK.yuekit
    • yep, well not all false negative results - they seem to give a lot of false positives too :Dkingsteven
    • LOL from now on when anyone pitches me a bad idea at work I am referring to it as "Brilliant Science"nb

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