Author Topic: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?  (Read 957 times)

Offline Yard sale

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2020, 11:34:49 PM »
I know a case where they postponed school opening for weeks, because school insisted that everyone get tested, and...surprise..., there were a bunch of kids 'sick'.

The solution that community is doing is...more testing.
^^^

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2020, 11:36:51 PM »
TBH, the thread topic is slightly misleading. The NYT is not saying that its a false positive, just that the tests are too sensitive, and are picking up signs of the virus, that would not be enough to make the person contagious.

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2020, 11:42:20 PM »
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Here’s a (very biased) piece that explains the issues.
https://www.redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/09/03/ny-times-up-to-90-of-people-who-tested-positive-for-c19-not-infected-truth-a-whole-lot-worse-pt-3/
The title of this thread is pure clickbait. The positives are not false positives- it is just possible that some (most?) of them are not contagious enough to spread. Guess what- we already knew that some people seem more liable to spread than others. The problem is identifying them.. but please stop posting week old articles to sow confusion and misinformation when you’re aware of an outbreak brewing
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Offline Yard sale

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2020, 11:49:42 PM »
They are false positives in the sense that they are not meaningful (and when people test positive they assume it is relevant) but if the title needs tweaking in open for title suggestions.

BTW does this mean that the mortality rate as a percentage of true positives is actually higher?

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2020, 11:54:19 PM »
They are false positives in the sense that they are not meaningful (and when people test positive they assume it is relevant) but if the title needs tweaking in open for title suggestions.

BTW does this mean that the mortality rate as a percentage of true positives is actually higher?
If that’s how you’ll classify positives and mortality rate, sure, but generally it’s reflective of how many people were infected (IFR stands for Infection Fatality Rate) so no, these people would count as well.

When people test positive, even under those conditions, it’s relevant for 3 reasons
1) They don’t know if they can spread- they may be able to
2) They know that they have been infected, so there is a transmission chain somewhere among their prior contacts
3) They may have had a higher dose earlier (and infected others previously) or it may build into a higher dose later (and infect others later)

Honestly, we all knew many of the reported positives were picking up old non-viral particles- that has been reported on these forums extensively. However, that is NOT the case for the new positives we are seeing.

@Dan was onto this theory for quite a while.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2020, 11:57:25 PM by S209 »
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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2020, 11:57:06 PM »
If that’s how you’ll classify positives and mortality rate, sure, but generally it’s reflective of how many people were infected (IFR stands for Infection Fatality Rate) so no, these people would count as well.

@Dan was onto this theory for quite a while.
Yes but is it possible that they never had anything other than trace viral loads and are fully susceptible to covid. If so they should not be included in the denominator.

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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2020, 11:58:34 PM »
Yes but is it possible that they never had anything other than trace viral loads and are fully susceptible to covid. If so they should not be included in the denominator.
If the whole point is to determine whether they may have antibodies, then sure, they should check for antibodies. At this point the scientific community is still wary of relying on antibodies, especially as we don’t know the window of immunity yet.
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Re: Are the vast majority of positive Covid tests false positives?
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2020, 12:00:05 AM »
If the whole point is to determine whether they may have antibodies, then sure, they should check for antibodies. At this point the scientific community is still wary of relying on antibodies, especially as we don’t know the window of immunity yet.
Correct. But for better or worse, many people that tested positive but never tested for antibodies are considering themselves as though they have antibodies. (And relying on that not to catch it again at least for the time being)