Coronavirus and Its Impact

[mdn82 25,461]

43 minutes ago, bigrod said:

Since Mullis passed away a few years ago, I guess we can't get his direct words, but have to rely on quotes or people who knew him. I think this is reinforcing what some here are saying about testing, but also the problems with the PCR test:

David Crowe, a Canadian researcher with a degree in biology and mathematics explained the problems with the PCR based coronavirus testing: “The first thing to know is that the test is not binary. In fact, I don’t think there are any tests for infectious disease that are positive or negative. What they do is they take some kind of a continuum and they arbitrarily say this point is the difference between positive and negative.”

He continued:

“PCR is really a manufacturing technique. You start with one molecule. You start with a small amount of DNA and on each cycle the amount doubles, which doesn’t sound like that much, but if you, if you double 30 times, you get approximately a billion times more material than you started with. So as a manufacturing technique, it’s great. What they do is they attach a fluorescent molecule to the RNA as they produce it.  You shine a light at one wavelength, and you get a response, you get light sent back at a different wavelength. So, they measure the amount of light that comes back and that’s their surrogate for how much DNA there is. I’m using the word DNA. There’s a step in RT- PCR test which is where you convert the RNA to DNA. So, the PCR test is actually not using the viral RNA. It’s using DNA, but it’s like the complimentary RNA. So logically it’s the same thing, but it can be confusing. Like why am I suddenly talking about DNA? Basically, there’s a certain number of cycles.”

Regarding Kary Mullis’ intention for the PCR, this is what he said:

“I’m sad that he isn’t here to defend his manufacturing technique. Kary did not invent a test. He invented a very powerful manufacturing technique that is being abused. What are the best applications for PCR? Not medical diagnostics. He knew that and he always said that.”

But he did not say that in a direct quote.  Ever.  No person selling their equipment or technology would ever do that.  That quote you are pulling is in reference to AIDS and HIV which is very different than Covid.  BTW, they still use the HIV/AIDS PCR test.  That is still the go to due to the relatively low cost and low margin for error.

[WayneFleekHoosier 46,828]

It depends on the vendor recommendations on 40 cycles.  I know Applied Biosystems runs for 40 cycles at 15 seconds each.  Depends on the unit.  Hospitals have very little say in how they run their equipment.  Just like your ceph unit in your office.  You know how to run it.  Less than a second, over 90 kvp or over over 10 mA depending on which machine you got.  If you stayed local and bought from Panoramic Corporation their recommendation would have been different than if you bought from GE.  Their test equipment is no different.  The variations are dependent on the manufacturer.  Not lab techs going rogue.  And I completely agree with you on the antibody tests.  

And that’s exactly why the people making decisions need to be questioned publicly. 40 cycles isn’t the standard. It’s double the standard and more. That’s why I say it’s fraudulent. General public with no background accepts a positive test as 100% fact. They are over amplifying the beejeezus out of the DNA/RNA. Doesn’t indicate whether it’s live or not. So much unknown and unexplained.

Many places want 2 positives to “confirm” a positive test. If that tells you the confidence they have in the tests. Then you add “2 cases” to counter when either could still be false.

And yes, The antibody test is practically worthless.






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[Golfman25 4,744]

58 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states

 

No they aren’t. 

You're right.  That 45 deg. line from 0 to 800,000 is a mirage.  

[WayneFleekHoosier 46,828]

Just read this on Yahoo.

“More than 158,000 people in the U.S. have died after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University, and about 4.8 million have been confirmed to have the infectious virus as of Aug. 6.”

That first line is written like that on purpose. A distinction on causation of death? Nope.

Anyway, I’m done for the day. Going to play ball and then the pool. Enjoy


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[mdn82 25,461]

15 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

And that’s exactly why the people making decisions need to be questioned publicly. 40 cycles isn’t the standard. It’s double the standard and more. That’s why I say it’s fraudulent. General public with no background accepts a positive test as 100% fact. They are over amplifying the beejeezus out of the DNA/RNA. Doesn’t indicate whether it’s live or not. So much unknown and unexplained.

Many places want 2 positives to “confirm” a positive test. If that tells you the confidence they have in the tests. Then you add “2 cases” to counter when either could still be false.

And yes, The antibody test is practically worthless.






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Knowing what you know I would think you would put the test at a bare minimum success at 95%. That’s probably low but not too far out of range of every other test out there.  I lost track of the exact number but let’s say out of 4,000,000 positives there are 200,000 false positives.  Viral testing is pretty tight.  
 

Now since overweight and diabetes is a popular subject in the various threads since someone can see someone is overweight.  Does everyone trust a glucometer without these levels of questions?  The American Diabetes Association is fighting constantly to bring every manufacturer within 15% margin for error.  So a normal test for a person without diabetes ranges from 80-120.  Some even tighten that up.  You are coded as pre diabetic anything over 120.  If you really run 110 you are considered a diabetic with a good possibility of not being accurate.  For the rest of your life you are a diabetic.  I have never seen anyone question that because they can see overweight people and just assume it’s true since more times than not the one has a direct relationship to the other.  There is far more spent on healthcare for diabetes than Covid and it’s been around a lot longer.  Why are we all so skeptical of this test versus others that effect day to day life a lot more?  This is what I don’t get.

[Brass Cannon 24,068]

12 minutes ago, Golfman25 said:

You're right.  That 45 deg. line from 0 to 800,000 is a mirage.  

Except we aren’t doing 800,000 a day

[WayneFleekHoosier 46,828]

Knowing what you know I would think you would put the test at a bare minimum success at 95%. That’s probably low but not too far out of range of every other test out there.  I lost track of the exact number but let’s say out of 4,000,000 positives there are 200,000 false positives.  Viral testing is pretty tight.  
 
Now since overweight and diabetes is a popular subject in the various threads since someone can see someone is overweight.  Does everyone trust a glucometer without these levels of questions?  The American Diabetes Association is fighting constantly to bring every manufacturer within 15% margin for error.  So a normal test for a person without diabetes ranges from 80-120.  Some even tighten that up.  You are coded as pre diabetic anything over 120.  If you really run 110 you are considered a diabetic with a good possibility of not being accurate.  For the rest of your life you are a diabetic.  I have never seen anyone question that because they can see overweight people and just assume it’s true since more times than not the one has a direct relationship to the other.  There is far more spent on healthcare for diabetes than Covid and it’s been around a lot longer.  Why are we all so skeptical of this test versus others that effect day to day life a lot more?  This is what I don’t get.

Nope, I don’t put success rate at 95%. Of catching true disease? Sure, maybe. But how many false positives go into that equation to get 95% of the affected. Double over amplification of standard.

As far as diabetes, I’ve considered that as my patients are effected by it. I’m not diabetic. Different lens. Much less impact on me.

When you force me to stop working, you’ve then got my attention.


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[mdn82 25,461]

1 minute ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Nope, I don’t put success rate at 95%. Of catching true disease? Sure, maybe. But how many false positives go into that equation to get 95% of the affected. Double over amplification of standard.

As far as diabetes, I’ve considered that as my patients are effected by it. I’m not diabetic. Different lens. Much less impact on me.

When you force me to stop working, you’ve then got my attention.


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That’s fair.  I will say with 100% certainty outside of radiography the medical diagnosis on viruses is pretty strong.  I would actually be surprised as of all of the tests taken today If less than 95% were wrong.  Not necessarily in March or April.  Unfortunately it’s the best way to strip DNA to pull the data we need.  Now if you apply in the human element of doing this test with the shear amount all at once, I am sure the margin of error is larger.  But the test can’t do anything about the lack of manpower for this amount of tests and how they are transported.  The test itself I am very confident in.  

[bigrod 2,786]

25 minutes ago, mdn82 said:

But he did not say that in a direct quote.  Ever.  No person selling their equipment or technology would ever do that.  That quote you are pulling is in reference to AIDS and HIV which is very different than Covid.  BTW, they still use the HIV/AIDS PCR test.  That is still the go to due to the relatively low cost and low margin for error.

There are many direct quotes. I guess the "fact checkers" can say whatever they want when someone isn't around to defend themselves.

Look, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm simply pointing out that some tend to act like this is totally scientific and airtight. It's far from either. Many, many scientists and doctors disagree with what is happening from diagnosis to treatment.

At the end of the day, even if you believe the numbers they are putting out there, this has at least a 99.6% survival rate, with many people experiencing very mild or no symptoms at all. If you look at people under 70 years of age, your chances of survival go up drastically even from that number.

 

 

[Golfman25 4,744]

39 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

Except we aren’t doing 800,000 a day

Yeah, about 750 avg/day the last month or so.  Number of tests and positive rate is falling.  Just maybe less people need tests is why raw number of tests is declining?  

[JSHoosier 19,580]

27 minutes ago, bigrod said:

There are many direct quotes. I guess the "fact checkers" can say whatever they want when someone isn't around to defend themselves.

Look, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm simply pointing out that some tend to act like this is totally scientific and airtight. It's far from either. Many, many scientists and doctors disagree with what is happening from diagnosis to treatment.

At the end of the day, even if you believe the numbers they are putting out there, this has at least a 99.6% survival rate, with many people experiencing very mild or no symptoms at all. If you look at people under 70 years of age, your chances of survival go up drastically even from that number.

 

 

False.  Current US mortality rate is 3.2%, the math is simple to do.  It's not dead or 100% fine though, there are serious issues being caused by this thing that can have permanent effect.

[mdn82 25,461]

37 minutes ago, bigrod said:

There are many direct quotes. I guess the "fact checkers" can say whatever they want when someone isn't around to defend themselves.

Look, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm simply pointing out that some tend to act like this is totally scientific and airtight. It's far from either. Many, many scientists and doctors disagree with what is happening from diagnosis to treatment.

At the end of the day, even if you believe the numbers they are putting out there, this has at least a 99.6% survival rate, with many people experiencing very mild or no symptoms at all. If you look at people under 70 years of age, your chances of survival go up drastically even from that number.

 

 

If you have a direct quote from Kary Mullis saying what you said he said please cite it.  Since there are many it shouldn’t be a problem at all.  What you said in your second and third paragraph I will just say cool.  I hope it wasn’t for me.  I was only “fact checking” a medical device/technology statement I am very knowledgeable in. 

[Brass Cannon 24,068]

1 hour ago, Golfman25 said:

Yeah, about 750 avg/day the last month or so.  Number of tests and positive rate is falling.  Just maybe less people need tests is why raw number of tests is declining?  

Do you make up the random numbers you get or do you get them somewhere 

[TheWatShot 13,335]

1 hour ago, JSHoosier said:

  It's not dead or 100% fine though, there are serious issues being caused by this thing that can have permanent effect.

QFT. I wish more people understood this. Seeing in color is preferable to seeing only black and white. 

[Brass Cannon 24,068]

4 minutes ago, TheWatShot said:

QFT. I wish more people understood this. Seeing in color is preferable to seeing only black and white. 

Plus a weakened heart as some people are having will end up killing them years earlier than they would have otherwise 

[RaceToTheTop 23,784]

21 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Look at the bright side.  If you were positive, your quarantine period is nearly up and I'm assuming you're not exhibiting any obvious symptoms.

On separate occasions we were trying to get our children tested (early 20s).  Both had low fevers — still under 100.4 — and due to work it might have been necessary.  Nearest drive through testing site would take 8 days to get a test and then 4 to 6 more days to get the results at minimum.

[Hoosierfan2017 19,903]

1 hour ago, JSHoosier said:

False.  Current US mortality rate is 3.2%, the math is simple to do.  It's not dead or 100% fine though, there are serious issues being caused by this thing that can have permanent effect.

The math is not at all simple to do because we have absolutely no idea how many cases we have had in the United States. The mortality rate is 3.2% if you simply divide deaths by confirmed cases, but as we know there are many more cases than the official total. 

[JSHoosier 19,580]

5 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

The math is not at all simple to do because we have absolutely no idea how many cases we have had in the United States. The mortality rate is 3.2% if you simply divide deaths by confirmed cases, but as we know there are many more cases than the official total. 

There would also be people that died from it and never got tested, especially early on, so they're not reflected; or died from one of the spin off issues before we knew what all this is causing and therefore aren’t accurately counted.  Goes both ways.

Official number is the best we've got.

[Golfman25 4,744]

1 hour ago, Brass Cannon said:

Do you make up the random numbers you get or do you get them somewhere 

Uh.  The chart you posted.  

[Brass Cannon 24,068]

25 minutes ago, Golfman25 said:

Uh.  The chart you posted.  

Are you looking at it upside down or something.