COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

  • Thread starter baldgye
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You can really learn a lot from this thread. Not just about coronavirus and it's spread and the scientific aspects of the research about it, but also a lot about how people react to the algorithms of social media, buying in to everything that confirm their own view of the world and happily share anything that confirms their own beliefs without any source criticism while totally denying anything that doesn't fit into their own view of the world.
I know Coronavirus is very dangerous, but I am starting to believe that social media is equally dangerous to mankind.
 
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RacingGrandpa
You can really learn a lot from this thread. Not just about coronavirus and it's spread and the scientific aspects of the research about it, but also a lot about how people react to the algorithms of social media, buying in to everything that confirm their own view of the world and happily share anything that confirms their own beliefs without any source criticism while totally denying anything that doesn't fit into their own view of the world.
I know Coronavirus are very dangerous, but I am starting to believe that social media is equally dangerous to mankind.
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Mankind is dangerous to mankind.
 
RacingGrandpa
But social media funnels people into flocks of like-minded people that pat's each others back and confirm each other in their views on the world.
And that's dangerous.

I suspect a great deal of the fascism growing in Europe are part of this...
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The internet has allowed people to find others who are like-minded. That's the good thing.
The internet has allowed people to find others who are like-minded. That's the bad thing.
 
I have learned (already figured it was so but it is confirmed now) during this pandemic that the world has way too many stupid people. And by stupid I mean ****ing dumb. Drywall levels of IQ.

I can not understand why you guys still bother with people like @x3ra and his non-posts. He and others, on GTP and in real life have shown that, just like with every other conspiracy their dumb feeble brains come up with, facts don't matter and you guys are the actual dummies.

If you can't provide actual facts to support your debate, there comes a point in time that it's allowed to play the man. And that time was somewhere back in April already.
 
Dennisch
I can not understand why you guys still bother with people like @x3ra and his non-posts. He and others, on GTP and in real life have shown that, just like with every other conspiracy their dumb feeble brains come up with, facts don't matter and you guys are the actual dummies.
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It's not so much I hope to change his mind, as far as I'm concerned it's a lost cause. But the way I look at it is someone on GTP might be bombarded with anti-mask, COVID's-a-hoax, rhetoric at home, work, where ever. Seeing actual academic evidence might give them at least a different perspective on everything going on and there's a chance they could change their tune.

That and I enjoy mask debating when I'm bored. I've also developed a huge fascination with COVID and everything surrounding it. Part of it's due to work since I look at stuff all day, but I think another part of it is I was without sports or really anything for months and needed something to fill the gap. COVID sort of won by default.
 
I'm still not the biggest fan of the masks but I've accepted them.
That said, spent hours in a cooler/freezer today.
My poor mustache and goatee! Nobody even said anything when I stepped out for ciggs!
I didn't realize till I went to the bathroom!
Must be the new guy hazing...
PS first day at site...
 
Famine
Masks are sunglasses for the mouth.

You know how no-one can see you watching that girl's ass through sunglasses? Well no-one can see you muttering "Oh for the ****ing ****'s sakes" through a mask.
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I'm no longer muttering it. I'm done with the dumb people.
 
FPR. False positive rate. In UK less than 1%. You all following? Let's call it 1% for the sake of easy maths.

If 10,000 people are tested for CV and 105 get tested as positive, then how many people actually have the virus?

Why do I ask? Because Matt Hancock doesn't have a clue. Do you?

I think it's 5. Am I right?

Regarding my non-answering of questions, where in the AUP does it say I have to answer any questions that are posed by anyone? And this is particularly true, when you're not even prepared to tell me specifically which questions I haven't answered. I'm not a ****ing mind-reader, but I see some of you are.

Also, if masks are so effective then surely the flu rates will have gone down, and countries that wear masks will have a lower flu rate than countries that do not. Any evidence that this is the case?
 
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x3ra
FPR. False positive rate. In UK less than 1%. You all following? Let's call it 1% for the sake of easy maths.

If 10,000 people are tested for CV and 105 get tested as positive, then how many people actually have the virus?

Why do I ask? Because Matt Hancock doesn't have a clue. Do you?

I think it's 5. Am I right?
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If 1% of 105 people are false positives then 99% of 105 are true positives which'd be 100. I haven't seen hide nor hair of a test since the virus outbreak started though so there may be more people infected who haven't been tested. Hope you're following.

x3ra
Regarding my non-answering of questions, where in the AUP does it say I have to answer any questions that are posed by anyone?
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I don't need to answer this question if it's not in the AUP. However, people are saying that demanding answers as you do while not answering questions posed to you is hypocritical.

x3ra
I'm not a ****ing mind-reader, but I see some of you are.
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What a charmer. Maybe some of us know how to use the search and previous posts facilities better than you do.
 
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So you are saying my maths is wrong.

I think you are wrong and I will show you why I believe this to be true (from https://assets.publishing.service.g...9_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf)

What is the UK operational false positive rate?The UK operational false positive rate is unknown. There are no published studies on the operational false positive rate of any national COVID-19 testing programme.An attempt has been made to estimate the likely false-positive rate of national COVID-19 testing programmes by examining data from published external quality assessments (EQAs) for RT-PCRassays for other RNA viruses carried out between 2004-2019 [7]. Results of 43 EQAs were examined, giving a median false positive rate of 2.3% (interquartile range 0.8-4.0%).Why are false positives a problem?DHSC figures [3] show that 100,664 tests were carried out on 31 May 2020 (Pillar 1 and 2 RT-PCR tests). 1,570 of those tests were positive for SARS-CoV-2 (1.6%). The majority of people tested on that day did not have SARS-CoV-2 (98.4% of tests are negative). When only a small proportion of people being tested have the virus, the operational false positive rate becomes very important. Clearly the false positive rate cannot exceed 1.6% on that day, and is likely to be much lower. If the operational false positive rate was 0.4%, 400 of the 1,570 positive tests would be false positives. That would represent 400 people being isolated when they are well, and much wasted effort in contact tracing. It is possible that a proportion of infections that we currently view as asymptomatic may in fact be due to these false positives.Unless we understand the operational false positive rate of the UK’s RT-PCR testing system we risk overestimating the COVID-19 incidence, the demand on track and trace, and the extent of asymptomatic infection.
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(I have bolded and bigged up what I consider to be relevant.)

At a FPR of 1% then from 10000 tests 100 would be false positives. Now I will grant you, this webpage from the government could be wrong (they've been wrong before). So if this is wrong then show me.
 
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Nope, it's my bad, it looks like I read it wrong. I'm not sure how closely your hypothetical figures relate to real numbers of positive cases though.

Screenshot_20200920-204827_Chrome.jpg
 
x3ra
Am I right?
Click to expand...

Of course not. Yet again you're trying to twist something to support your stance, without regard for the truth, and getting it horribly wrong...

(I'll use 7-day averages throughout this post to avoid spurious numbers, and always compare tests to positive results for matching 7 day periods. Numbers taken from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk . I'm taking FPR to mean the net ratio of false positive results minus false negative results to the overall number of tests).

A reasonable upper estimate for FPR is about 0.6%, since that's where the positive test results bottomed out over July (tests: 100k rising to 136k, cases: 580 rising to 800, so 580/100k=0.58% and 800/136k=0.588%). Since there were surely some true positive results amongst those the actual FPR is lower, but let's go with 0.6%.

1 Aug: 136k tests, 800 positive results, minus FPR of 0.6% => 0
15 Aug: 160k tests, 1071 positive results, minus FPR of 0.6% (960) => 111 true positives, 0.07% of tests
1 Sept: 170k tests, 1529 positive results, minus FPR of 0.6% (1020) => 509 true positives, 0.3%
15 Sept: 225k tests, 3466 positive results, minus FPR of 0.6% (1350) => 2116 true positives, 0.94%

I'll grant you that FPR is worth considering when looking at the recent rise in cases. Unfortunately for you and your pathetically put argument, it actually reveals that the rise is much worse than one might appreciate just by looking at the cases graph - assuming FPR of 0.6%, by 15 Sept real cases have gone up by infinity% since 1 Aug, or by 1906% since 15 Aug. Using the percentage of true positives instead (to allow for increased testing) there is still a jump from 0.07% to 0.94% between 15 Aug and 15 Sept, an increase of 1343%.

I guess next week you'll be back arguing that FPR is extremely small, because that supports your stance better :lol:

(edited to add true positive percentage of tests and its increase)
(edited again to clarify use and definition of 'net FPR')
 
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x3ra
At a FPR of 1% then from 10000 tests 100 would be false positives. Now I will grant you, this webpage from the government could be wrong (they've been wrong before). So if this is wrong then show me.
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The key phrase in that article is "The UK operational false positive rate is unknown"...

But the facts speak for themselves. It is not possible for the FPR to be 1% (or higher) when the number of positive results was significantly lower than that (e.g. in July)... and when the actual number of people with the virus was low.

That article is not arguing in favour of your point - it is merely stating a fact that the FPR is more important when actual infections are low... but that same article also goes on to point out the (equal, if not more so) dangers of false negatives... which you don't mention.

The main point is, though, that the FPR rate should, in principle, be constant... and, thus, should be directly proportional to the number of tests done... i.e. if tests increase linearly, then the number of false positives should also increase linearly... (which would explain the gradual increase from late June-mid August)...

But then, how can the FPR or testing explain the non-linear increase observed in the last four weeks?

It can't
 
x3ra
FPR. False positive rate. In UK less than 1%. You all following? Let's call it 1% for the sake of easy maths.

If 10,000 people are tested for CV and 105 get tested as positive, then how many people actually have the virus?

Why do I ask? Because Matt Hancock doesn't have a clue. Do you?

I think it's 5. Am I right?
Click to expand...
No.
UKMikey
If 1% of 105 people are false positives then 99% of 105 are true positives which'd be 100.
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It's not that either.
x3ra
At a FPR of 1% then from 10000 tests 100 would be false positives. Now I will grant you, this webpage from the government could be wrong (they've been wrong before). So if this is wrong then show me.
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Yes, this is also wrong.

True positive = someone correctly identified as having an illness
True negative = someone correctly identified as not having an illness
False positive = someone incorrectly identified as having an illness
False negative = someone incorrectly identified as not having an illness

For fun, you also have:
Sensitivity = proportion of true positives compared to all positives
Specificity = proportion of true negatives compared to all negatives

"False positive rate" (or ratio) is simply the inverse of sensitivity (and false negative rate is the inverse of specificity).

You have a test which identifies 105 people with the illness. Some of those 105 are correctly identified as having the illness (true positives) and some are incorrectly identified (false positives). If the known false positive ratio is 1% - which is a sensitivity of 99% turned upside down - then 1% of your positives are false positives. If you had 105 positives, then roughly 1 (1.05) is a false positive and 104 are true positives.

The number of false negatives would be interesting to have too. False positives are often an inconvenience, whereas false negatives are usually a catastrophe.
 
Famine
"False positive rate" (or ratio) is simply the inverse of sensitivity (and false negative rate is the inverse of specificity).

If you have a test with a known false positive ratio of 1% - a sensitivity of 99% - and you have 105 positives, then you have roughly 104 true positives and 1 false positive (1.05, in fact); 1% of the positives are false. The number of actual tests is irrelevant to the sensitivity.
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Must admit in that case that I didn't know how the term FPR was defined, so in my previous post I was using it as he was (not that it changes the math).

Is there a specific term for the ratio of false positives to tests?

Edit: As far as I can find out, the best advice is to check what a particular paper says FPR is! Other than that, wikipedia says that False Positive Ratio is (typically) the ratio of false positive results to tests that should have come out negative. That makes a lot more sense to me as it can deal with the situation where there are zero true positive results.
 
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Famine
It's not that either.
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I was closer than he was though despite my dodgy arithmetic. I didn't see how the false positive rate applied to negative tests as he was trying to argue.
 
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Famine
No.

It's not that either.

Yes, this is also wrong.

True positive = someone correctly identified as having an illness
True negative = someone correctly identified as not having an illness
False positive = someone incorrectly identified as having an illness
False negative = someone incorrectly identified as not having an illness

For fun, you also have:
Sensitivity = proportion of true positives compared to all positives
Specificity = proportion of true negatives compared to all negatives

"False positive rate" (or ratio) is simply the inverse of sensitivity (and false negative rate is the inverse of specificity).

You have a test which identifies 105 people with the illness. Some of those 105 are correctly identified as having the illness (true positives) and some are incorrectly identified (false positives). If the known false positive ratio is 1% - which is a sensitivity of 99% turned upside down - then 1% of your positives are false positives. If you had 105 positives, then roughly 1 (1.05) is a false positive and 104 are true positives.

The number of false negatives would be interesting to have too. False positives are often an inconvenience, whereas false negatives are usually a catastrophe.
Click to expand...

False negatives are interesting but discussed even less than false positives.

So are you saying that the number of false positives doesn't have anything to do with the number of tests taken? Because that's not what the govt website says.
 

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