Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

ednwireland

hmmm wrote: »

I'm not qualified to comment on the science, but how are multiple other countries using antigen tests while Ireland appears to be an outlier?

I notice that the Germans appear to be using these tests in places where you wouldn't normally be tested e.g. gyms, restaurants - what's wrong with that? Worst case they miss a positive case (which would have been missed anyway), best case they detect some cases.

i think this is the heart of it ! here is oh its not good enough pcr only, whilst other countries have taken the approach that yes you may miss cases but you wouldnt have tested them without antigen tests.

Ficheall

hmmm wrote: »

Worst case they miss a positive case

Worst case, they tell someone they don't have covid when they do. That is the concern.
(I think it's about 3/10 people they tell they don't have covid when they do, assuming the test is administered correctly.)

Martina1991

hmmm wrote: »

I'm not qualified to comment on the science, but how are multiple other countries using antigen tests while Ireland appears to be an outlier?

I notice that the Germans appear to be using these tests in places where you wouldn't normally be tested e.g. gyms, restaurants - what's wrong with that? Worst case they miss a positive case (which would have been missed anyway), best case they detect some cases.

I haven't looked at what other countries did as far as trialls before implementation. I'd guess that many went from the manufacturers sales pitch to handing them out to he public without thorough review. This is what the UK did.

When hospitals fill up and governments want to act fast, they skip independent scientific review in the settings they deploy the tests and believe what the manufacturers claim.

I'm not saying use pcr for gyms, restaurants etc. I dont think we need antigen tests in these settings at all. I think it's a waste of resources and gives people a false sense of security.

With cases and hospitalisations still falling. Vaccine rollout accelerating and restrictions easing anyway, I don't think we need to waste time on a blunt ineffective tool.

hmmm

Ficheall wrote: »

Worst case, they tell someone they don't have covid when they do. That is the concern.
(I think it's about 3/10 people they tell they don't have covid when they do, assuming the test is administered correctly.)

The point is that they are being used in places where we currently have no testing.

It doesn't matter if they only detect 50%, or 10% of cases, currently we are detecting 0% of cases in those locations.

You can argue about whether the cost is worth it, but I'm not the one paying for it and you can decide yourself whether it is worth it. It's becoming a bit redundant now as vaccination numbers increase, but if a restaurant charged me an extra 5 quid because they want everyone to have an antigen test I'd give them my business.

FintanMcluskey

hmmm wrote: »

I'm not qualified to comment on the science, but how are multiple other countries using antigen tests while Ireland appears to be an outlier?

I notice that the Germans appear to be using these tests in places where you wouldn't normally be tested e.g. gyms, restaurants - what's wrong with that? Worst case they miss a positive case (which would have been missed anyway), best case they detect some cases.

I think the theory from nPHEt is that if paddy Irish man gets a false negative from an antigen test he will start licking windows and slobbering over the face of whoever who he meets on the street

The rest of the globe use antigen tests because the citizens are more trustworthy

FintanMcluskey

Deleted User wrote: »

Nah mate. Just can’t let the “blame the messenger” schtik lie just because they only want to hear happy thoughts. Things are good and getting better. Does not mean we should not listen to potential warnings. I ignore most of them as there is little new on offer, but in fairness there was reason to be cautious about the delta variant. The data is now telling us, get those second doses out and it will be grand. Doesn’t mean it should be ignored

Wow

You ignore most warnings but completely support restrictions

That’s an interesting one

Which warnings do you follow?

Or how do you decipher what warnings are worthy

First Up

The main concerns I heard expressed about Antigen tests is the unreliability of people conducting the tests on themselves. If they are done by people who know how to do it properly then they are a good measure, which is how a lot of businesses are screening their staff.

hmmm

hmmm wrote: »

I'm not qualified to comment on the science, but how are multiple other countries using antigen tests while Ireland appears to be an outlier?

I notice that the Germans appear to be using these tests in places where you wouldn't normally be tested e.g. gyms, restaurants - what's wrong with that? Worst case they miss a positive case (which would have been missed anyway), best case they detect some cases.

Germany (Berlin at least) are using antigen tests for access to these services which is far more restrictive than here. And they also tell anyone with symptoms not to go to the antigen test centres but get pcr instead. Now the accuracy of antigen tests was established with testing on symptomatic individuals so automatically you are reducing the effectiveness. In this sense the German approach is actually a bit muddled unless you are taking them daily. As part of ongoing monitoring supported by pcr antigen test will pick up additional cases. As a one off test for those with no symptoms they are of minimal value however as in that scenario they will miss as many cases as they detect. For every one case traced you will another running around thinking happy days.

FintanMcluskey

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Wow

You ignore most warnings but completely support restrictions

That’s an interesting one

Which warnings do you follow?

Or how do you decipher what warnings are worthy

Way to completely misunderstand and misrepresent

ZX7R

Surprised there is no outrage about the mass gathering of protesters in Dublin today.
Must be that they weren't drinking ha.

is_that_so

ZX7R wrote: »

Surprised there is no outrage about the mass gathering of protesters in Dublin today.
Must be that they weren't drinking ha.

They're not from Dublin!

ZX7R

is_that_so wrote: »

They're not from Dublin!

The protest is in Dublin!

is_that_so

ZX7R wrote: »

The protest is in Dublin!

Yeah, but they'll go back to Donegal with whatever they brought!

ZX7R

is_that_so wrote: »

Yeah, but they'll go back to Donegal with whatever they brought!

Donegal variant, oh no...

giveitholly

ZX7R wrote: »

Surprised there is no outrage about the mass gathering of protesters in Dublin today.
Must be that they weren't drinking ha.

In fairness there is a bit of a difference between people losing their homes to faulty blocks and people thinking that rte staff are eating dead babies to keep themselves looking young and burying the remains under the children's hospital!!!!

ZX7R

giveitholly wrote: »

In fairness there is a bit of a difference between people losing their homes to faulty blocks and people thinking that rte staff are eating dead babies to keep themselves looking young and burying the remains under the children's hospital!!!!

You wouldn't have though that two weeks ago reading some of the posts on here

is_that_so

ZX7R wrote: »

Donegal variant, oh no...

Donegal Catch!

User1998

ZX7R wrote: »

Surprised there is no outrage about the mass gathering of protesters in Dublin today.
Must be that they weren't drinking ha.

Probably because they aren’t young

iamwhoiam

User1998 wrote: »

Probably because they aren’t young

Or pissing in shop doorways

timmyntc

We've had how many protests and "outrageous" outdoor gatherings by now, and not one has led to a spike in cases?

Maybe now the lack of outrage is justified - its simply not a risk.

*...generously applies alcohol-based solution to hands whilst adjusting microphone height*

Good afternoon everybody.

Today we are reporting 283 new cases of COVID-19, bringing our national total to 267,344. There have been no additional deaths.

There are currently 60 patients hospitalized with the virus with 23 in critical care.

Our 14-day incidence of the disease is 105 cases per 100,000 population.

I'll now hand you over to Gavan Reilly for more on today's epidemiology.

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1404830789825662977

Thank you Dr. Glynn. I'll now hand you back over to Tony to reflect on the weekend's activities in central Dublin.

Tony: "The scenes at the weekend were beyond deplorable to say the least....B]45 minutes later[/B...and that's why, even though you haven't asked your question yet, I agree with you George: we do need another lockdown.."

Stormyteacup

giveitholly wrote: »

In fairness there is a bit of a difference between people losing their homes to faulty blocks and people thinking that rte staff are eating dead babies to keep themselves looking young and burying the remains under the children's hospital!!!!

What does it matter what anyone is protesting?

Worthy causes are okay ‘in the middle of a pandemic’ but only if judged a morally acceptable cause.

Otherwise protesters are a danger to public health?

Stormyteacup

[Deleted User] wrote: »

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/algorithms/PCR%20weak%20results%20guidance.pdf

Its always better to inform yourself of the facts before making wild assumptions

Yes but from your link;

‘When it is not practical to implement the process outlined here and no differentiation
between a positive result (unqualified) and a positive result qualified as high Ct value
/low viral load is accessible it is necessary to proceed on the basis that a positive test
is evidence that a person is infectious.’

And also;

‘Interpretation of results is dependent on the availability of Ct values/viral load. Laboratories may not report Ct values routinely but should provide the result in the context of expert interpretation on request. If Ct values/viral loads are not available for any reason (for example some platforms do not display Ct values) the default is to assume a positive result represents a significant result and that the person is infectious. It may be appropriate however to retest the sample on a platform that does display Ct values.’

Guidance is reasonably clear but do you have any information on how many reporting labs have platforms that display CT values (I don’t know - could be 10%, could be 90%)?

An example of guidance being clear but not possible is the ‘one entrance, one exit’ guidance for hospitality. All good if you’ve two entrances, but many don’t and so guidance doesn’t apply.

CT cycles run to 40 and admittedly high CT returns are few But imo the guidance is loose. Labs are unlikely to be comparing each sample with sample history for prior symptoms, prior infection, and local community level of infection, for every sample collected. And the director of each lab makes the call for cutoffs, there’s no regulation as such.

What I’m saying is it’s hardly an unequivocally scientific streamlined collection of data. There is much open to interpretation based on personnel, and on system capability.

Plus, that document is from April this year - is it possible that prior to then the thresholds for ‘detected’ were higher? What were the guidelines last October for example? Are the current comparisons for antigen vs PCR from recent PCR reporting guidelines or from last year?

Yes PCR is the gold standard, but its drawbacks are sensitivity and time limitations - at this stage of vaccination rollout and infection control, while pressing on with hopefully resuming normal life, we should be employing antigen tests in certain situations/locations to manage transmission as an additional tool, where their advantage is accessibility, cost and faster result.

bucketybuck

Martina1991 wrote: »

There's the data. There's the findings. This is why decisions and policy are based on real world scientific data.

It's the rest of the world I feel sorry for, if only they knew what we know! :-(

normanoffside

Probes wrote: »

That would be an edge case indeed, are there actually any examples of this happening?

There are quite a lot of examples of people being unable to fly home due to positive PCR tests post recover.
Here is one article outlining the problem:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/irish-stranded-abroad-despite-full-recovery-from-covid-19-1.4486675

Sweet.Science

No Indian variant in New York it seems

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

*...generously applies alcohol-based solution to hands whilst adjusting microphone height*

Good afternoon everybody.

Today we are reporting 283 new cases of COVID-19, bringing our national total to 267,344. There have been no additional deaths.

There are currently 60 patients hospitalized with the virus with 23 in critical care.

Our 14-day incidence of the disease is 105 cases per 100,000 population.

I'll now hand you over to Gavan Reilly for more on today's epidemiology.

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1404830789825662977

Thank you Dr. Glynn. I'll now hand you back over to Tony to reflect on the weekend's activities in central Dublin.

Tony: "The scenes at the weekend were beyond deplorable to say the least....B]45 minutes later[/B...and that's why, even though you haven't asked your question yet, I agree with you George: we do need another lockdown.."

Bizarre

Stormyteacup

Stormyteacup wrote: »

Yes but from your link;

‘When it is not practical to implement the process outlined here and no differentiation
between a positive result (unqualified) and a positive result qualified as high Ct value
/low viral load is accessible it is necessary to proceed on the basis that a positive test
is evidence that a person is infectious.’

And also;

‘Interpretation of results is dependent on the availability of Ct values/viral load. Laboratories may not report Ct values routinely but should provide the result in the context of expert interpretation on request. If Ct values/viral loads are not available for any reason (for example some platforms do not display Ct values) the default is to assume a positive result represents a significant result and that the person is infectious. It may be appropriate however to retest the sample on a platform that does display Ct values.’

Guidance is reasonably clear but do you have any information on how many reporting labs have platforms that display CT values (I don’t know - could be 10%, could be 90%)?

An example of guidance being clear but not possible is the ‘one entrance, one exit’ guidance for hospitality. All good if you’ve two entrances, but many don’t and so guidance doesn’t apply.

CT cycles run to 40 and admittedly high CT returns are few But imo the guidance is loose. Labs are unlikely to be comparing each sample with sample history for prior symptoms, prior infection, and local community level of infection, for every sample collected. And the director of each lab makes the call for cutoffs, there’s no regulation as such.

What I’m saying is it’s hardly an unequivocally scientific streamlined collection of data. There is much open to interpretation based on personnel, and on system capability.

Plus, that document is from April this year - is it possible that prior to then the thresholds for ‘detected’ were higher? What were the guidelines last October for example? Are the current comparisons for antigen vs PCR from recent PCR reporting guidelines or from last year?

Yes PCR is the gold standard, but its drawbacks are sensitivity and time limitations - at this stage of vaccination rollout and infection control, while pressing on with hopefully resuming normal life, we should be employing antigen tests in certain situations/locations to manage transmission as an additional tool, where their advantage is accessibility, cost and faster result.

Have you ever noticed over a period of time positive test always exceed confirmed cases and have ever considered why this may be?

Martina1991

Martina1991 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/stapalato/status/1404502055172050945?s=19

A thread with a little more detail from the hse antigen test working group.

"TL:DR - PCR remains the gold standard for detection of SARS-CoV-2. Missing virus present at low levels, as antigen tests often do, can miss seriously ill, infectious, or pre-infectious individuals. Performance in real world significantly differs from manufacturers data. "

"In meat processing plants, antigen test sensitivity was 51.9% compared with PCR. Looking at asymptomatic individuals with Ct values <=30 (equating to substantial viral load), test sensitivity of 68.9% did not meet WHO acceptiblity criteria (≥80% sensitivity)"

PCR always be the method others are compared to because it is the gold standard. New methods will always be compared to the gold standard. That is the most accurate way of measuring an analyte.

The downfall of PCR is that its "too sensitive ". There are procedures and protocols in place to reduce these incidences, yet the line of false positives being a significant factor in cases and prolonging restrictions is still trotted out. Its not true.

Here are findings that asymptomatic people in meant palnts with high viral loads were missed by antigen tests.

People and "experts" can debate til the cows come home. Its not going to change the results that people don't want to hear. There's the data. There's the findings. This is why decisions and policy are based on real world scientific data.

I already posted those results last night and without antibody testing it means nothing.

Martina1991

Martina1991 wrote: »

I haven't looked at what other countries did as far as trialls before implementation. I'd guess that many went from the manufacturers sales pitch to handing them out to he public without thorough review.

How soon you forget. We discussed this many weeks ago. I provided the link to where the Manufucturers' products were tested by Institutes on behalf of the German Government and they only approved that which meets their standards. It appears I have to keep dipping in to this thread to keep you honest.