When one follower asked if false tests could be driving the national surge in cases, Musk replied, “If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others.” When another follower suggested that “revenues from tests are likely not bogus & very consistent,” Musk replied, “Exactly.”...
WaPo goes on to say that Musk has been a coronavirus "skeptic" since last March, when he tweeted "the coronavirus panic is dumb." The panic is dumb. That doesn't mean he thinks the disease itself isn't serious!
This reminds me of the way President Trump was treated at the end of February, when I was critical of headlines like "Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a 'hoax.'" That was, I said at the time, a "hoax hoax."
The WaPo article attributes what it calls his "fury" to his financial interests: "forced to shutter a California [Tesla] factory... he unleashed a heated rant" in an earnings call and said the government should give “people back their g — d--- freedom.” And: “To say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist.... This is not democratic — this is not freedom.” He's called the lockdowns “fundamentally, a violation of the Constitution.”
Posts
124 comments:
Bogus! Just like this election!
The statistical anomalies are such that the people who investigate fraud,(all kinds), for a living are deeply concerned.
WAPO investigates false positive testing experienced by Musk, discovers the cause is Musk shuttering one of his production facilities?
These propagandist aren't even trying anymore.
He's not wrong.
As I think of the present situation and consider that the possibility they get away with almost all of this (i.e. the upcoming virus lockdown after the election shenanigans) is about 90% right now, my thoughts lead me to the regrettable conclusion that things may start to become a bit "Irish" in our beloved nation over the next little while.
People won't forget. Some won't forgive. The dogs don't want the kibble they're dishing up.
@Rusty
The great think about voting fraud is that if you catch it, it’s proof that it’s impossible to get away with so it can’t be widespread. And if you don’t find it, that’s also proof that it’s not happening. Nothing to worry about!
The media's war on anyone speaking the truth continues...
Two of them are right and two of them are wrong. What's the problem. Surely Musk knows about type I and type II errors. He's hitting one of them.
If you know those error rates and how many tests have been done, you'll know how many people that happens to.
The party of science likes to throw around scientific terms and rally around their preferred scientists, but there’s nothing scientific about their attitude towards the world. Instead, they use “science!” as a club to beat down opposition, end discussion, and narrow choices. What they really want to do is push opinions they don’t like out of the discussion because it’s easier and more reliable than honestly refuting them.
One can understand and support the latest science about COVID and still conclude that some, most, or even all mitigation efforts cause more harm than benefit and should be stopped.
He just likes that swab up his nose...
If you repeat a test because it's positive, you get new type I and type II errors for the combination test, presumably better rates than a single test. (Which would not be the case for repeating a coin flip).
Public health "experts" don't have answers for us. Or they do, but it wildly contradicts the ones they offered months ago. In the same vein, the political geniuses who ensured us of a massive Biden victory have to shrilly dismiss all the evidence showing that the statistically improbable turnouts in relatively few urban areas are huge red flags that practically invite major investigation. Biden personally has nothing to lose if he ends up fomenting a civil war, he was already going to jail anyways. But what about Wretched Whitmer? Tony Evers? Even Andrew Cuomo? These governors are in very precarious positions with their rural populations, and they'll be really surprised to find out how vulnerable their cities are.
I'm actually quite grateful that they've promised to jail the real President. That forces Donald Trump to #CrossTheRubicon and destroy his enemies utterly.
>>The great think about voting fraud is that if you catch it, it’s proof that it’s impossible to get away with so it can’t be widespread. And if you don’t find it, that’s also proof that it’s not happening. Nothing to worry about!
Let's avoid all of that, and declare vote fraud a myth. Then there's no reason to look for it.
The problems with the interpretation of test data has been well known for a long time. It’s an example used in statistics classes to demonstrate that often the counterintuitive explanation is the correct one. It’s known as the false positive paradox if you want to go to Wikipedia. It’s kind of like the Monty Hall problem, where you greatly increase your chances of winning by switching doors. You have to work it out step by step to see why this is the case, and some people still don’t believe it.
Same day tests are likely a kind of bullshit all their own too.
" Or they do, but it wildly contradicts the ones they offered months ago. In the same vein,”
You do know that science is a method, not a set of revealed facts from God, right? A lot has been learned in the past several months. It doesn’t help that our press thinks that keeping us in the dark and feeding us bullshit is their mission.
The whole 'no evidence of vote fraud' is like those NYC store fronts: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! WE LOST OUR LEASE!!
Ya, but you never went looking for it...
"'no evidence of vote fraud” is the new “Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation.”
First thing that Biden will do is Putin’s bidding in crippling US energy production.
Our daughter (who we see regularly) tested positive - she had the sense of taste/sense of smell/fatigue symptoms. Wife and I were tested - both came back negative. Wife had significant fatigue and gastro-intestinal symptoms. I had slight fatigue for a couple of days. Dept of Health said that if you don't have the sinus symptoms, the test has a high incidence of false negatives (they said 30%, don't know how they arrived at that figure) and that we should assume that we had it, and to self-quarantine.
The tests are pretty unreliable
" Or they do, but it wildly contradicts the ones they offered months ago. In the same vein,”
The science was “settled” damn it!
I think a lot of people confuse ‘science' with ‘seance’ which is a process where we receive the ‘Truth' from supernatural powers.
How much are we spending on tests nationally? What are we getting for that billion a week? What are the Kleptocrats Shares. Follow the money.
"The tests are pretty unreliable”
And yet a person who knew how to properly interpret the tests in the context of your situation and symptoms got it right.
The PCR test that's being used for most WuFlu testing is not a great test, but it's a very sensitive test. Because it works by amplifying fragments of the viral DNA in cycles (unzip the DNA, replicate the DNA, rinse and repeat, and at each step making some errors) it risks amplifying random junk DNA, or dead fragments of an old infection into a positive signal, depending on the number of cycles. The inventor of PCR process says it should never be used to test for a virus for that reason.
We don't really know what the false positive rate is (calling a test an infection when there is no infection or even a past infection), and it probably varies from testing site to testing site, and clearly depends on the number of cycles used. PCR pros say any more than 30 cycles and you risk increased false positives. Commercial testing labs are using 35-45 or more to get positives. But there are signs it's in the low single digit percentages.
For example, Maryland was running about 3% positive tests most of the summer, and there were very few hospitalizations or deaths from WuFlu. It's starting to tick up again, and the positivity rate is up to almost 6%. I will hazard a guess that the false positive rate is somewhere around 2%, and that most of the reported cases during summer were the result of false positives. Now that it's up around 6% again (in places like Baltimore, Monkey County and PG county), we are starting to see some impacts in hospital beds, but, at least not yet, in mortality, which stays at single digits per day.
I think we fucked up the whole summer over bad analytical techniques.
I think a lot of people confuse ‘science' with ‘seance’
[applause] Kudos to you, tim in vermont!
tim in vermont said...
I think a lot of people confuse ‘science' with ‘seance’ which is a process where we receive the ‘Truth' from supernatural powers.
11/13/20, 6:33 AM
Modern government science is authority-based: status, and not actual accomplishment, imparts authority. It's why NASA focuses more on diversity than a stunning lack of accomplishment compared to 50 years ago. Fields based on statistical manipulation are even worse off.
But one thing that can be noticed is how eager fraud experts are to dive in on this utter debacle. Larry Correia fans are SALIVATING at a chance to demonstrate the anomalous statistics behind a Biden victory- why the very nature of extremely high turnout in some districts is practically an invitation to investigate for voter fraud in the tens of thousands. I would add that once those thousands are caught, the existence of a plan to defraud the national election will mean a lot of people going to jail. Think they're going to face prison or the gallows for JOE BIDEN?!
Buckle up!
"And yet a person who knew how to properly interpret the tests in the context of your situation and symptoms got it right."
Meaning - don't trust the test, trust the symptoms, which means asymptomatic people won't be identified in a lot of cases.
iowan2 @5:58AM is why I don't worry for the future of this country. One sentence to dismantle the entire WaPo article.
I like the fact that he uses the word 'bogus".
Elon's Excellent Adventure.
I am Laslo.
The coming unnecessarily lockdown.
+ Distribution of vaccine created under Trump.
= Biden beat the Coronavirus!
That’s an odd tactic that college graduated kids of about 20 to 40 think is profound:
“Aha! You’re pissed off and you’re yelling! So, you’re completely discredited.”
Used frequently on FaceBook.
Saint Anthony of Fauci has stated that anything over 34 cycles is unreliable. Yet the two largest clinical labs in the country, Quest and Labcorp run their tests at 38 to 40 cycles.
I don't think there is any doubt that the positives, i.e. the "cases" number that leads every newscast, is overstated.
I pay no attention to the cases number. The only numbers that matter are hospitalizations and deaths.
It sounds like he had a rapid test, not a PCR test. The rapid tests are 50% accurate. You might as well flip a coin. Same thing with rapid flu tests. The PCR test has a false negative rate of 30 %. Its accuracy depends on the amount of virus in your nose. It has a high specificity, though. Very few false positives, like almost never.
Wait! What!? Did WaPo say an expert said something?
Oh, I better read that. I wouldn’t want to miss something an expert said.
I think eventually we'll find out that the deaths from covid were about the same as a bad flu season. When young people are killed in car accidents but also test positive for covid and all the old people who die from something else but also test positive for covid are counted as covid deaths, then obviously the number of covid deaths are overstated. They've been overstated because of the liberal agenda.
I have a neighbor who got a positive from a test she never took.
Yes false negatives are very common because the PCR test is extremely sensitive. If your body has a piece of a virus leftover from a flu or cold or other COVID-like virus then you show positive, and most new “cases” being reported are asymptomatic. As reported earlier, every positive test is recorded under current procedure as a “new case” as in our personal experience. So now Elon accounts for two of the “current cases” the media is so excited about. We aren’t so much in the middle of a pandemic as we are a PANIC continued by the media about the WuFlu. It’s more COVID theatre. Why do you think Fauci came out this week and said it’s almost over?
If Trump concedes the pandemic will be declared over. But if Biden steals enough votes he will push to lock down and continue killing businesses.
A lot of people died in NYC and in Italy when the virus was allowed to virus and then we reacted and the number of deaths dropped.
Here is Biden’s choice for chief of staff should he win:
Ronald Klain@RonaldKlain
On #COVIDー19: If you want to do something useful today, go to Chinatown -- buy a meal, go shopping. The virus attacks humans, not people of any ethnicity/race. Fear is hurting Chinese-American owned businesses, baselessly. Let's fight the disease AND let's fight prejudice.
https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1233392663145205761
Check out the fawning replies and attacks on Trump when Democrats were telling people to go to street festivals, without masks, btw.
Oh surprise. The MAINSTREAM Wash Post says they guy that privately took us to space is a “skeptic” who’s skepticism is only driven by his financial interests. What other insights will this MAINSTREAM outlet committed to truth and cruel neutrality grace us with? The false test help bloat the case numbers to keep the fear alive for someone’s gain. Just like the car accident COVID death classifications. I wonder who benefits? Hmmmm, such a mystery.
Suppose there is an isolated population of one million people, absolutely all of whom are COVID-free.
Using a test with a false-positive rate of 1% (one percent), you test the entire population.
You will find that 10,000 of the one million people have COVID.
There might be plenty of false positive test results that are inflating the number which means the death rate is higher. One thing that isn't being faked is how quickly our hospitals are filling up with covid patients and how our hospital workers are once again coming down with covid at significantly higher rates than they did over the summer.
"and most new “cases” being reported are asymptomatic. “
I am taking your word for it, so starting there, if the actual prevalence of COVID infections is lower than the rate of false positives, the odds are that most of these “asymptomatic” people, people who are by definition tested without symptoms, don’t actually have it.
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-false-positive-paradox-f86448a524bc
On the more hopeful side, it’s a known thing about viruses that they have a tendency to evolve to a less virulent form over time. I hope that’s what’s happening, but my head says it’s the first thing.
Mike said it better than I did.
Howard:
Please provide data to back up your assertions. I've found no data supporting either claim, with the exception of some localized cases of higher hospital utilization rates. The key word here being localized.
For our mathematical purists, the slope of the curve continues to decline. Temporary upward blips from aggressive testing will not cause any peak near what we saw in April or August, and deaths per day will continue the long tail to approach zero. As many past viruses demonstrate we humans may never ever reach zero new infections or deaths, but vaccines and herd immunity are what keep things like Chicken Pox and Rubella and Measles at bay.
Interesting that Althouse's linked blog post goes back to the time when -- unbeknownst to us -- Trump was actually telling Bob Woodward that the virus was indeed a big problem but that Trump was choosing to "play it down."
Trump succeeded in messaging these Michigan rally goers that "There is no COVID... It's a fake pandemic, created to destroy the United States of America":
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/09/11/trump-rally-attendees-michigan-ctn-vpx.cnn
Even when the Trump-Woodward conversations were revealed, the TrumpCult believers wouldn't accept it.
Oh look Howard has anecdotal evidence of illness. He thinks it “might mean” a higher death rate. OK. Or you can watch the deaths per day continue their decline and use this EVIDENCE instead of your hunch. But then that would be scientific and lessen panic. Howard doesn’t want that.
" virus was indeed a big problem but that Trump was choosing to "play it down.”
Did you see my quote from Biden’s choice for chief of staff. There was plenty of that going around.
Does Elon know how many cycles were run on his tests?
The rate of positives is a function of the number of cycles the test is run. Run less than 30 cycles of so, and pure kung flu virus will show negative.
Run more than 40 cycles and you can find kung flu in a rock.
“…If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or more… the chances of it being replication-confident [aka accurate] are miniscule… you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive result] from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…”
At about 4:30
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-641/
Most tests are being run at 37 to 40 with some as high as 45. FDA guideline is, apparently 40. In a quick search of the FDA site just now I could not find that explicitly but I did find this:
When all controls exhibit the expected performance and the cycle threshold growth curve for any one marker (N1 or N2, but not both markers) crosses the threshold line within 40.00 cycles (< 40.00 Ct) the result is inconclusive.
https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
Page 35
This document was published July 13, 2020. I have read/heard, but have no source, that prior to July the recommended threshold was 35.
Interesting choice of words there too. Not the result is negative. No, the result is "inconclusive"
So how many cycles did they run on Elon's samples?
Did they run the same number on all tests? If he could get the cycle numbers, would he find that the negative tests were run fewer cycles than the positive tests?
And the cycles are not numeric progression, with 36 just a bit more than 35. They are logarithmic with 36 being a LOT more than 35.
John Henry
"Please provide data to back up your assertions. I've found no data supporting either claim, with the exception of some localized cases of higher hospital utilization rates. The key word here being localized.”
It’s the same argument that the Democrats are using regarding voter fraud. “It’s just localized, just a few cases”
I have a med tech friend, he says that a local hospital here is getting busy again. This summer he was eating in restaurants and going on little trips, now he is back isolating and cancelling Thanksgiving. I know, anecdotal evidence to you, to me a confirmation that the stories nationally are likely true.
I’m still stuck on Althouse dismissing the Gateway Pundit yesterday in the comments (even though this blog is its own form of alternative punditry) in favor of NYTs, Wash Post, and Axios being the MAINSTREAM. “I’m not going to click through some right wing website!!! It’s beneath me!!!” In a way she’s right. When propaganda and lies are the main information broadcast and other truths suppressed, I guess it’s still “MAINSTREAM”. It’s like pretending Madison, WI is the mainstream.
So know we get a daily dose of Althouse shock reaction to mainstream twists and lies. It’s becoming predictable. It’s like watching someone tie a knot and the end of a rope, and desperately hang on to a world view that ended up being a nefarious farce.
Howard said: There might be plenty of false positive test results that are inflating the number which means the death rate is higher.
Unless the false positive people are dying the death RATE is not higher....it is lower. Unless you falsely state that the deaths of the FALSE positives are due to Covid, the death rate will be lower.
Statistics and math....they are haaaard. Believing propoganda....easy peasy.
You say the hospitals are full of Covid cases. Cite your evidence.
Let's assume for the moment that 35 really is the sweet spot for minimizing both false positives and false negatives.
There is still an argument to be made for running 40.
In law we say that it is better to let 100 guilty people go free than to convict 1 innocent person.
In a disease, it may be better to get a lot of false positives than to miss a true negative.
On the other hand, 2020 is a political year, whatever else we say about kung flu, politicians are using it to score electoral points. If you can increase the number of "cases" (Not actually cases, just positive test results) you can yell ORANGE MAN BAD!!!! LOOK AT THESE KUNG FLU NUMBERS!!!!! at the top of your lungs and scare the shit out of people.
We saw both Biden and Harris do this in their debates, for example.
So if you are anti-Trump, perhaps you turn the dial up to make it look worse than it is. Just as campaign season is ramping up.
Or it could just be a coincidence.
John Henry
Presidents can’t stop viruses from spreading, Chuck. You are smart enough to compare the H1N1 and our current affliction. The Swine Flu was highly virulent, meaning it spread quickly, so quickly that it was everywhere in USA before Obama’s admin called it a pandemic. It was virulent so it spread quickly, but it had a low CFR, meaning fewer people died that flu variant than the current virus. Then like now your best defense wash frequent hand washing and don’t touch your face. That’s the way these work. No government agency can stop the spread of a virus. It comes down to behavior and WHAT VICTIMS are more susceptible (fat? Immune-compromised? old?) to the virus.
There is somebody here who likes to say that the death rate for COVID is one in a thousand or 0.1%. The current death rate in the United States is at 0.073% approximately, on its way to 0.1%. So that is more BS.
The reason they add those factors into COVID deaths is so that researchers can tease out risk factors and improve treatments, not to inflate numbers of COVID deaths.
That being said, the political kakistocracy under which we live has done little to earn anybody’s trust.
Howard:
Here are some numbers from NJ. More detailed numbers on hospital utilization rates are expected this afternoon. All numbers are for Covid patients.
Total current hospitalizations: 1439
Patients on ventilators: 197
Patients in intensive care: 284
Keep in mind that there are 8.9 million people in NJ.
There are 71 hospitals in NJ, so the average numbers per hospital are as follow.
Hospitalizations per hospital: 20.2
Patients on ventilators per hospital: 2.8
Patients in intensive care per hospital: 4.0
One other thing, the PCR test doesn't actually look for the virus itself. It looks for indirect traces that the virus may be or have been present.
Since a common cold is a form of corona, the test may detect residue left from a cold or regular flu.
The so-called "test" is bullshit.
John Henry
“Trump succeeded in messaging...” - Chuck
In other words, he never said what CNN and yourself are claiming he said. I don’t even have to look, I know you don’t have a quote.
I heard a call on the Lars Larson NW show yesterday. Someone needed to get a WuFlu test for work and it was taking 6 hours to get the test. The testing side told the caller that if he/she(?) left, then the site would report a positive test result. All without taking the sample. How often is this occurring and inflating test results?
All of that data is useless without trend data, Jersey.
NO my friend, the people here who think Trump “hid the truth” about COVID will never admit what Ron Klein said about H1N1 last December because it doesn’t fit the narrative. The narrative trumps reality for these people. That’s why Biden declared he would favor FACTS over TRUTH. As you know “facts” change over time but the truth is eternal.
Blogger Fritz said...
Monkey County
Is that racist?
Montgomery County MD is majority black population.
And you call it "monkey" county?
I find that offensive.
John Henry
All we can really trust are the general trends. Most of these ‘precise' counts are just eyewash.
Blogger Jersey Fled said...
I pay no attention to the cases number. The only numbers that matter are hospitalizations and deaths.
Ditto. The definition of "case", per CDC is a positive reported test result. Not sick, not even necessarily a true positive result. Just a positive result.
So if Elon got 2 positive results, he counts, for the CDC as 2 cases.
And, as I showed above, the number of positives can be dialed up and down depending on how the test is run.
As for hospitalizations and deaths, even those number are pretty bogative.
We need to distinguish between "with" and "because of" Most of the deaths, 94%, IIRC, had an average of 2.3 causes in addition to testing positive.
I've not seen stats for hospitalizations but would be surprised if they were not similar.
John Henry
"I’m still stuck on Althouse dismissing the Gateway Pundit”
Gateway Pundit is overly excitable and prone to running off half cocked. It’s like a dog barking in the night, maybe something is there, but you had better check for yourself with other sources, could be just a possum sniffing around the garbage can.
As far as the rest of your comment, yes, the New York Times and the Washington Post, CNN, etc, do the same things.
Congratulations, you’ve been selected to test positive for the corona virus. You may be entitled to a government sponsored free test. To find out if you qualify, just dial 1-800-COVID-19. That number again is 1-800-COVID-19. Operators are standing by.
It’s like watching someone tie a knot and the end of a rope, and desperately hang on to a world view that ended up being a nefarious farce
One if the big reasons advertisers covet the 18-34 year old demographic is that they have not yet developed strong brand loyalties and are willing to switch to new things. Older folks are brand loyal to a fault.
Tim:
Maybe I missed your point, but a death rate of 0.1% (i.e. .001) is 1 in 1000.
1÷.001=1000
"We need to distinguish between "with" and "because of" Most of the deaths, 94%, IIRC, had an average of 2.3 causes in addition to testing positive. “
Are you advocating that if somebody with high blood pressure, for example dies of COVID, that the fact that this person had high blood pressure should not be reported? Or is you position that suddenly high blood pressure is killing people in large numbers this year, for unexplained reasons.
"Maybe I missed your point,”
Sorry, I had made a mistake the first time I posted and so shortened my second post too much. 240,000 people is 0.073% of 330,000,000 Americans. One in a thousand is 0.100%. So if the death rate is really one in a thousand, then 3/4 of us must already have had COVID.
I agree with you Tim 8:17. Gateway pundit is worthy of news that might or will be hidden by the usual pro-D hack sources, but,,, excitable and leads readers to false hope.
I looked it up recently. Swine Flu (H1N1) required both Influenza-like Illness (ILI) symptoms AND a positive test to be listed as one of the 60,000 cases.
And there is no set standard between labs, much less states or federally, to the level of amplification applied to the test sample before making the call on positive or negative.
On the other hand, if you just have a little bit of virus, it is hit or miss as to whether the sampling will catch the virus, then the PCR test via amplification can test positive on a single virus fragment.
True fact: a friend in MA missed his COVID test. Three days later he got a call saying he was positive.
Which are more bogus -- the COVID numbers, or the election numbers? Tough call.
Why does it take Elon Musk to point this out? Everyone knows it. It is not news.
In an ideal world, the Washington Post would have been writing thundering editorials since last April, denouncing the the panic porn that has come to dominate our lives.
Instead, the Post bahs like a little sheep: "See what the naughty man said!"
Perhaps Elon can run for president.
Anything is better than Kamala-Biden-Media nexus of corruption and insider grift.
In the end, and history is a marker for this, it is the Newsom's and Cuomo's and Whitmer's of the world who end up getting their photo taken while strung up by their feet from a lamppost.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
Everyone should appreciate that IF we had a vigorous and responsible media, somewhere/anywhere, then by now we should have all had ample information about the origin, spread, treatment, tracing and tracking of viral outbreaks. In short, we would all have excellent epidemiology facts to access and use to evaluate options. We don’t. We have been poorly served by a hyper-partisan media that has done its best to sow panic and distrust during a national crisis. In short, the media has been treasonous in its failure to ASSIST Americans in understanding and dealing with this, ahem, extraordinary flu virus. Instead we are like ancient people checking chicken entrails for signs, because THAT is exactly the level of sophistication our “expert class” brought to this issue. That’s why I’ve been disgusted by the media since about the end of February. We could not have avoided much of the death under any circumstances, but we could have avoided the economic and educational damage wrought by unnecessary and ineffective lockdowns.
A positive Covid test only means one of two things, You have it or you had it. Just like you can get a DNA test from a long dead human you can get a DNA from a long dead Covid virus.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
Are you advocating that if somebody with high blood pressure, for example dies of COVID, that the fact that this person had high blood pressure should not be reported?
I don't follow your argument here.
What I am saying is that under current reporting, a person who has high blood pressure and tests positive for kung flu is reported as a kung flu death even if they died of a heart attack cause by high blood pressure.
So what is the cause of death? Heart attack or kung flu?
Probably heart attack. Did kung flu contribute? If they had a severe case, possibly. If all they had was a positive test result, probably not.
Or a person who dies in a motorcycle crash having tested positive. Are they a kung flu death? Certainly not. They died "with" not "of" kung flu.
In 94% of deaths attributed to kung flu, it may be or may not be a contributing factor. It is not the primary factor.
That is why we need to distinguish between of and with.
I do think we need to keep the statistics. We need to know if that person who died on the motorcycle had kung flu. And whether they actually had it or just tested positive. But we need to separate that death from people where it was the primary cause of death.
John Henry
Even if this virus has a case fatality rate (CFR) similar to a bad flu, it will still kill far more people if unchecked, because it is more contagious. If virus A kills 0.2% of its victims, but only infects 10% of the population, and virus B kills. 0.2% of its victims and infects 50% of the population, with the same CFR, virus B kills five times as many people.
I work in the testing industry. Based on the article, I think he had a rapid test. They are not nearly as accurate as a nasal pharyngeal swab (the one that goes all the way up) or even just a nasal swab run by full qPCR. The rapid tests do not have the same detection limits as the qPCR test. While it can and will find positives, there must be a significantly higher virus load.
Someone who has recovered from COVID can also test positive weeks or months later. Since we are looking for fragments of DNA, a sample can sometimes pick up a fragment that was not cleared out by the body. We see this on people who are tested weekly after recovery. You can therefore get a few negatives, then a positive, and more negatives. It is all in the sample taking.
Self sampling is another source of error in the test. Home collection has a higher false negative rate because people cannot follow the instructions, do not swab effectively, and it is hard to do the saliva tests. Any self collection of a positive must be followed up with a medically supervised one.
"Perhaps Elon can run for president."
Not eligible. But who knew it would take a foreign-born genius grifter to become the voice of American freedom? Hell, I may even buy a Tesla some day.
tim in vermont at 7:49 AM
I have a med tech friend, he says that a local hospital here is getting busy again. This summer he was eating in restaurants and going on little trips, now he is back isolating and cancelling Thanksgiving.
COVID epidemics are seasonal. People go to the hospitals in the winters, and they do not go to the hospitals in the summers.
This happens every year.
Why COVID epidemics are seasonal
Blogger MacMacConnell said...
A positive Covid test only means one of two things, You have it or you had it. Just like you can get a DNA test from a long dead human you can get a DNA from a long dead Covid virus.
No, Mac.
First you are assuming no mistakes or contamination in collecting, preparing and testing the sample.
Second, you are, I think, assuming that it is not a misreported test as someone mentioned. Once a test center gets you in, if you walk out without a test, they report you positive.
There is a fair amount of both of these.
But I think you are probably talking an correctly done test with no mistakes.
What it is testing for is not, specifically, Covid-19. It is testing for Corona virus of which Covid is only one of a family. A common flu is a corona virus. A common cold is a corona virus. There are other corona virus illnesses.
So the positive result from high sensitivity shows that you had a corona virus at some time in the past.
It does not show what kind. It assumes it was Covid 19.
John Henry
"So what is the cause of death? Heart attack or kung flu?”
So you are saying that there has been a sudden unexplained increase in the deaths due to high blood pressure and heart attacks unrelated to COVID?
You do know that COVID is known to cause blood clots, the root cause of heart attacks and stroke, right?
"We need to know if that person who died on the motorcycle had kung flu”
This is what the CDC says about that:
Cause of death counts are based on the underlying cause of death, and presented for Respiratory diseases, Circulatory diseases, Malignant neoplasms, and Alzheimer disease and dementia. Deaths due to external causes (i.e. injuries) or unknown causes are excluded.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Been saying it for months. Musk had this experience, and I know two people who went for testing but left before anything was done, only filling paperwork, and then got a letter stating they were positive. Never tested but positive, two people out of two, 100% of the ones I know who gave personal info, but were not tested. This is another scandal of immense proportions laid upon the American people by the left. Unforgivable. The biggest human error in history, since Adam and Eve.
Temujin,
Mussolini et al did not get strung up upside down from a lamp post. If that was who you have in mind.
They got hung upside down in a gas station.
Which is even more fitting given biden/harris/newsom opposition to energy.
Metaphorically, of course.
I am not advocating any illegal violence.
John Henry
I should have included this in my CDC excerpt
As of June 3, 2020, additional information on weekly counts of deaths by cause of death has been added to this release.
So they may have been including motorcycle accident deaths prior to June 3, IDK.
. Deaths due to external causes (i.e. injuries) or unknown causes are supposed to be excluded.
FIFY
John Henry
They have calibrated the machines to a poimt where they detect tiny traces of antimatter
OK, now you are just doing conspiracy stuff. Like I said, these people have done little to earn anybody’s trust.
If you are talking about the Corona and have never had it, there should be a disclaimer saying you are talking about something you have had no in the body experience with. I will find out by sunday if I am experienced seeing that I have the same symptoms as a close friend who is in hospital today for it. Everyone says that they want to go to heaven one day, but, no one wants to die.
Often times when nations experience national crises, it will have the effect of increasing pro-social behavior and cooperation. It's a cliché that a common enemy unites people. Except the US really isn't a nation. It looks more like a multiethnic empire with 50 state provinces and outposts all over the world. In such a case, it wouldn't be unusual for external events to aggravate divisions rather than mitigate them.
This whole thing has been a shit show from top to bottom, left to right, and coast to coast. Republicans and Democrats once again proving all they're good at is whipping up partisan rancor.
Mosk was probably leading us all to learn about Bayes Theorem.
Fuck your “both sides” bullshit Farmer. Coast-to-coast Republican governors were far more likely to oppose shutdowns than D governors. It is the shutdowns NOT the WuFlu that has caused most of the death and damage this year. One side is still locking down their states even though the CDC and WHO concur that lockdowns do more harm than good. What could be driving this unscientific and illogical punishment Democrats are inflicting on the populace? Good intentions?
After all that What is operative? Mission Accomplished. The evil orange man has been defeated.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
Presidents can’t stop viruses from spreading, Chuck. You are smart enough to compare the H1N1 and our current affliction. The Swine Flu was highly virulent, meaning it spread quickly, so quickly that it was everywhere in USA before Obama’s admin called it a pandemic. It was virulent so it spread quickly, but it had a low CFR, meaning fewer people died that flu variant than the current virus. Then like now your best defense wash frequent hand washing and don’t touch your face. That’s the way these work. No government agency can stop the spread of a virus. It comes down to behavior and WHAT VICTIMS are more susceptible (fat? Immune-compromised? old?) to the virus.
Presidents don't seem to be able to do that job, do they? At least the current President.
It's odd, because leaders in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and even Canada did very, very much better than the United States.
Chuck Channeling Schumer: “Even when the Trump-Woodward conversations were revealed, the TrumpCult believers wouldn't accept it.”
I might accept it, but I saw the video of Pelosi in Chinatown, the Democrats’ condemnation of Trump for restricting China travel, the leftmediaswine and other Democrats playing the virus down (apparently including unbeknownst to me Biden’s possible Chief of Staff) and decided it was just a hypocritical Dem talking point and not particularly relevant. You bringing it up pretty much confirms that.
In that regard, it has now become clear why the Democrats and their complicit mediaswine have decided to roast Trump and whitewash their business partners, the ChiComs, over the spread of the “China Virus.”
With regard to hospitalizations, are they distinguishing between hospitalized with COVID and hospitalized because of COVID? If I get in a car wreck and have a confirmed but asymptomatic case of COVID am I hospitalized with COVID? My guess (pure speculation) is that I would be counted as a COVID hospitalization. It stands to reason that as 'cases' rise - regardless of their lethality - cases in the hospitals rise as well.
"It is the shutdowns NOT the WuFlu that has caused most of the death and damage this year. “
This is what I mean when I say that people who can’t think quantitatively still have very strong opinions.
Clark said..."With regard to hospitalizations, are they distinguishing between hospitalized with COVID and hospitalized because of COVID?"
I've been told by a friend in the medical industry that anyone in the hospital for any reason that can be listed as a COVID case IS listed as a COVID case, because Medicare / Medicaid / insurance reimbursement rates are much higher, by law.
"It's odd, because leaders in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and even Canada did very, very much better than the United States."
This would make sense if these countries were almost all identical to the U.S.
This result may be more reasonable than it first appears.
What it actually means is that Elon Musk has been infected by the Covid-19 virus and he is on the borderline of being infectious to others.
All four of these tests were 15 minute tests, and that means the results came back in 15 minutes, and they are also antigen tests. And that's a totally different kind of testing than the PCR tests.
PCR tests can detect extremely low levels of the virus but unfortunately take a long time usually to give a result, are expensive, and also have a high probability of giving a false positive. And if they are misused, ie. too many cycles of amplification, they will routinely give false positives.
Antigen tests do not detect low levels of the Covid-19 virus. It is just that simple. So that means for most people that have Covid-19, the antigen test will give them a negative result, since most people that have it actually have quite low levels.
Why then would we want to do an antigen test? Because if you have low levels of the virus, you are not infectious to other people except maybe in an intimate context.
Antigen tests will detect people that have significant amounts of virus in their saliva or the fluid in the nose that they are shedding into the world around them.
A positive result on an antigen test means that you can infect other people. A negative result means it's quite unlikely that you can infect other people but it does not mean that you don't have the virus.
Since viral levels can change rapidly, an antigen test is really only good for one day.
Now I have read statements like "antigen tests are only 50% accurate" but I think that's a myth, and the only truth hidden in that myth is the obvious one that an antigen test is not a PCR test and that it will not give a positive for low levels of the Covid-19 virus.
If anyone believes to the contrary please give me a link to something that is not just a dumb comparison to a PCR test.
@John Henry,
Montgomery County MD is majority black population.
Point of fact correction: No, Prince Georges County is majority black. Montgomery is majority white, counting those Latinos who consider themselves "white" Here's the stats for Monkey County& here's the stats for PG County.
A sizable fraction of the black population of Montgomery County is foreign born, with areas like Silver Spring chock-a-block with Ethiopians, Eritreans, & Somalis. In the northern part of the county are yuuuge communities of Asians --- Chinese, Indians, Koreans, etc. There are Chinese groceries on Rockville Pike where you can buy live turtle or visit the self-service Chinese "meatball bar" (i.e. meat balls of pork, beef, fish, shrimp, etc.)! The Latinos are spread out, but mostly in the Silver Spring/Takoma Park area or in the north of the county where the rents are cheaper. What poverty there is in Montgomery County is mostly Latino immigrant poverty.
I live in Monkey County.
Here endeth the lesson.
I got deathly sick in September and manifested all the symptoms of COVID, in very severe form, except lung congestion. I was tested three times. Two tests came back negative, one came back "undetected" (still not sure what that means). What did I have? Not the flu, for which I tested negative. Not pneumonia, also negative. Bizarre. Something's not right here.
If Elon doesn't watch out, he is going to end up with a couple of new mandatory "partners" named "Hunter and His Totally Above Board Chinese 'Friend'".
"It's odd, because leaders in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and even Canada did very, very much better than the United States."
I don't think any of that is true.
I doubt that Canada is doing any better than the United States and I suspect they have the same level of infection. Any apparent difference is going to be solely that, apparent but not real. And there is plenty of room of this. All they would have to do is have a different definition of what it means to be infected.
I no longer believe that Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea are doing better because of superior virus tracking. I think they are doing better because they are protecting the elderly better than we are. In these countries nursing homes or their equivalent have been isolated from the rest of the population since this all began.
But as for the virus tracking, it is no longer believable. These countries are doing better because they were already close to having herd immunity from past exposure to other coronaviruses, including the SARS epidemic which was effectively confined to Asia. Or so I believe.
As for New Zealand and Australia, I think their response is an utter disaster. They are destroying their economies. It doesn't matter that they have had very few Covid-19 deaths. It's worse to destroy your economy.
Yeah, a guy who builds spacecraft and electric cars for a living doesn't believe in science. Thanks WaPo for clearing that up.
You do know that science is a method, not a set of revealed facts from God, right?
Yes, I know, but I'm still going to wear my "Vaccines work, GMOs are safe, and everything's a chemical" t-shirt.
I'm getting tired of the whole topic. Its going on for how long now? 8 months? The sheep won't do anything - whether its a "Hoax" or not. Or whether the lockdown is destroying businesses and people's lives or not.
Personally, I'm not being hurt, and neither is anyone I know. If the sheep want to keep going "Bah, bah" that's their affair.
Supposedly the pfizer vaccine is on its way, so the whole topic will be irrelvant in a couple months. I hope.
Since everything that can reasonably be done federally in the United States is being done, broadly, the most likely reason for the United States suffering worse from the disease than other countries, is because it is in the interest of a fraction of the country for the whole to suffer. No clearer example can be given then Andrew Cuomo's murder of the old people in the nursing homes and general brutal in competence, but there are others.
The appearance of a large number of asymptomatic infections indicates the virus is not that potent.
It had it's way early on with the elderly and serious ill population, and in some locations, still does. But, unlike past/present flu viruses, it spares the young - and pretty much anyone without an underlying medical condition.
Democrats believe in never letting a crisis go to waste, and they have been very adept at turning what began as a serious, but limited, medical situation into a full blown crisis, and have taken full advantage of the crisis they created.
Democrats believe in never letting a crisis go to waste, and they have been very adept at turning what began as a serious, but limited, medical situation into a full blown crisis, and have taken full advantage of the crisis they created.
Yes, and they intend to continue according to Biden's "advisors." Democrat voters are largely government employees whose salaries continue in lockdowns.
The vaccine will arrive.
Biden will export it to other countries and slow roll it here.
Another year of lockdown.
Why? Because we haven't burned down the White House yet.
Fuck them. Get a rope and let's have a hanging party.
Newsom I see you...
unlike past/present flu viruses, it spares the young
Unintended Consequences? Polio and COVID 19
Before the introduction of modern sanitation, polio infection was acquired during infancy, at which time it seldom caused paralysis but provided lifelong immunity against subsequent polio infection and paralysis in later life.
This is true for many infectious antigens and diseases. Furthermore, the value of community immunity is to mitigate exponential spread, which is inhibited (e.g. recurring spikes) through restrictive mandates, thereby extending exposure of at risk populations. See masks and protocol in specialized environments with trained personnel.
Every Friday since 8/7/20, I take the death stats by state off of the Johns Hopkins website [strange hobby I know but that is what I can do while eating lunch in my office].
Up to 8/7/20, there had been 160,000 deaths in USA. Since then, there have been 80,000 more deaths. I am not a statistician nor epidemiologist so can't say for sure if these numbers indicate anything re trends.
I do find it odd that Vermont reported stats has had only 1 Covid death since 8/7 but 58 prior to 8/7.
The farther away you get from Acela Corridor states, the more likely that a state has had more deaths after 8/7 than before 8/7. That could mean the virus listened to the old advice of "Go West Young Man" or the Acela Corridor states have been undercounting their deaths once they learned it reflected poorly on the state governors. For instance, NY has had only 1,219 deaths since 8/7 and 31,000 prior to 8/7. Similar data for NJ.
Foryou Badgers, WI has had 2,621 deaths so far which is 45 per 100,000. It had about 1,000 deaths up to 8/7/20 and 1,643 since then.
USA death rate is now 74 per 100,000.
Too bad we can't inject the damn virus into certain people. Like, in Michigan.
Young Hegelian, Fritz,
I knew that of Montgovery and PG counties one was majority black and one majority white but could not remember which.
I looked it up before commenting and it showed Montgomery county as 54% black.
Now, looking back at my browser history, I find I looked up Montgovery County Alabama, not MD. I thought I had looked up MD but apparently did not.
It's about 20% in MD.
Mea culpa. I apologize
John Henry
Reminds me of listening to a Medical College of Wisconsin "expert" say (on air) that retesting after being positive should not be done since the test can pick up inactive viri from up to 3 months prior.
Wait, what? But then...
Interviewer just said "Hmm", before moving on.
I asked my county health dept. whether they had any data on cycle testing rate used and response was "I wish!"
Labs used don't provide.
But that doesn't stop them from promoting zero criteria testing to all comers in more and more location.
Even our Governor Coffee Filter Face just suggested those in close contact or symptomatic get tested.
Do these counties profit from testing?
Da Fauch and friends
From comments:
Woem Yrom
1 week ago
At the 4 minute mark: Fauci has known since at least July that most Covid “cases” are false. The US routinely uses 42-45 cycles, Fauci says any positive test above 35 cycles is a false positive. This is what the whole pandemic is based on - fake test results. Watch Fauci admit it.
LOL chuck thinks it’s better “over there.” But our president got a competing series of cool new vaccines ready and near ready, do they? And ain’t it funny how all the “but Europe” covidiots have new countries to compare the USA to, NONE of which have nearly our population or diverse culture. Try again America-hater. In fact try and discuss public health without indulging your oikaphobia.
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