After watching this, the question came to mind, how do tests for antibodies pick Covid antibodies out from other Corona virus antibodies? Since most flus and common colds are also corona type viruses? He is a well respected and thought of doctor and scientist working with infectious diseases. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

A couple earlier posted Youtube videos were even too much for Youtube and removed from the Youtube site. Think about how bad that needs to be!

 

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/qa-on-covid-19-antibody-tests/

How do COVID-19 antibody tests work?

Precisely because antibodies are highly specific and bind to certain features of a pathogen — for example, the spike protein that sticks out from the surface of the COVID-19 virus — it’s possible to design tests that can fish them out and say whether a person has them in their blood. (Antibody tests are also known as serological tests, since antibodies are found in the serum portion of the blood.)

As Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security explains, this can be done in the lab with what’s called an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA. Scientists attach some SARS-CoV-2 surface protein to a plastic plate, then add a bit of patient serum. If there are antibodies in the serum that recognize the virus’s surface protein, they will stick to the protein, which can then be seen by adding a lab antibody that recognizes human antibodies and has the ability to trigger a color change.

In one preliminary evaluation, posted as a preprint to medRxiv, nine commercially available rapid tests were found to miss as many as 35% to 45% of samples that were positive. The rapid tests generally produced fewer false positives — 7% or less — but even that performance may not be good enough, especially if the tests are used in a population in which few people have been infected.

For general population tests (city, state,national) the high false negative is NOT much of a problem as you can include that as a factor in large scale calculations. For personal pass/fail testing we need much better accuracy. This might be handled with several different test that each have difference false indicators that will average out to a true pass/fail probability.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/antibody-tests-can-t-yet-say-who-s-immune-covid-n1193321

Antibody tests can't yet say who's immune to COVID-19, but they can show who's at risk
By showing how many people haven’t been infected, the tests provide a picture of who remains vulnerable to the coronavirus.

 

I know Dr. Osterholm quite well. Back in the late 70's/early 80's, he was preparing for an attempt to swim the English channel. Looks like he may be preparing for that challenge again.

He is quite reasonable, and as a state official at the Minnesota Department of Health, he was a joy to work with.

 

Our "exit" strategy is this dilemma:

 

 

Took wife for blood work and quietest I have seen the Med Center. Parking was a breeze which was nice. I had to wait out in the truck. Called Slyman's Restaurant next door (convenient) who are known for their corned beef and ordered two sandwiches which each have about a pound of corned beef. I also ordered the fried pickles. Wife came out so picked up lunch. Stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and got hard cider and toilet paper. Only got toilet paper since it was there. Wife says I am not allowed to buy anymore since I now have likely a year supply. Drove home and enjoyed lunch. Busiest day I have had in a month. How sad is that? Really? I am so done with this.

Ron

 

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/new...esivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19

Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (red) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

 

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/new...esivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19


View attachment 205742
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (red) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Impressive how trial and error is so freely (even commended) used in medical science, and yet in engineering customers expect immediate and exact (and cheap) answers to every problem they approach you with.

 

About face for WHO? Now Sweden is the model?
https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/
The World Health Organization lauded Sweden as a “model” for battling the coronavirus as countries lift lockdowns — after the nation controversially refused restrictions.

 

Impressive how trial and error is so freely (even commended) used in medical science, and yet in engineering customers expect immediate and exact (and cheap) answers to every problem they approach you with.

Experiment is the basis for all modern scientific fact. That's the difference between Engineering and Science. The two have areas in common but don't totally overlap.

 

Impressive how trial and error is so freely (even commended) used in medical science, and yet in engineering customers expect immediate and exact (and cheap) answers to every problem they approach you with.

Now that you mention it... Never gave it much if any thought till you mentioned it.

Ron

 

Impressive how trial and error is so freely (even commended) used in medical science, and yet in engineering customers expect immediate and exact (and cheap) answers to every problem they approach you with.

Medicine is like an engineering project that never ends. It's like trying to hit a moving target. When a vaccine is developed they have to guess in advance how it might mutate and the mutation can be within the same year that it is developed. That makes it less than 100 percent effective until ,many become immune, provided it does not mutate too much.

 

 

View attachment 205745

What's the problem? Those lines are going to completely different banks!

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...reak-out-control-test-positivity-rate/610132/

Because the number of Americans tested for COVID-19 has changed over time, the U.S. test-positivity rate can’t yet provide much detailed information about the contagiousness or fatality rate of the disease. But the statistic can still give a rough sense of how bad a particular outbreak is by distinguishing between places undergoing very different sizes of epidemics, Andrews said. A country with a 25 percent positivity rate and one with a 2 percent positivity rate are facing “vastly different epidemics,” he said, and the 2 percent country is better off.

In that light, America’s 20 percent positivity rate is disquieting. The U.S. did almost 25 times as many tests on April 15 as on March 15, yet both the daily positive rate and the overall positive rate went up in that month. If the U.S. were a jar of 330 million jelly beans, then over the course of the outbreak, the health-care system has reached in with a bigger and bigger scoop. But every day, 20 percent of the beans it pulls out are positive for COVID-19. If the outbreak were indeed under control, then we would expect more testing—that is, a larger scoop—to yield a smaller and smaller proportion of positives. So far, that hasn’t happened.

In other news, the local tribal casinos are reopening May 4.

 

Experiment is the basis for all modern scientific fact. That's the difference between Engineering and Science. The two have areas in common but don't totally overlap.

Preaching to the choir Nsa? ...

 

the local tribal casinos are reopening May 4.

be with you...

 

Preaching to the choir Nsa? ...

Maybe but the number of times some drug or treatment that looks so promising in a lab completely fails in human trials should make us humble about the level of engineering currently possible in advanced medical research.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...reak-out-control-test-positivity-rate/610132/


In other news, the local tribal casinos are reopening May 4.

I don't know that his reasoning is sound as it depends on a number of variables that he seems to be completely ignoring.

There's the question of who is being tested, how are they being tested, what is the quality of the tests being used, just to mention a few.

 

I am no longer allowed to respond.

Having been 'out of the loop' for awhile here, I've no idea what all that's about (albeit I'll wager the 'p-word' 'factored into it' somewhere

Anyhow -- What's the big idea of changing your avatar? Don'tcha know I get all 'sick and crazy inside' when people do that!? -- A sensation, FWIW, akin to that derived via observing the motion of ice-flows from the deck of a bridge <<vertigo emoticon needed here>>

TTFN
HP