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ohiofarmer

Reliability of covid testing

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ohiofarmer

 The new york times has an article about testing for reliability to se if you have developed antibodies to the virus, which is supposed to prove which test is the most reliable. Two things struck me.  It can take as much as three weeks of being sick to get 80% reliability. They also make the statement, "But false positives become dangerous when making policy and personal decisions about who CAN GO BACK TO WORK.. "you don't want anybody back to work who has a false positive-- thats the last thing you want to do,' doctor Krammer said.

 

 Does that mean that you can only go back if you tested positive and are considered recovered???? Maybe up to the discretion of your Governor??  It may be just one person's opinion, or it may be something we have not been informed of yet. maybe you guys can carefully read the article and [hopefully ] tell me i read it wrong.

 

.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

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CCW

My take away based on the quote below is it takes three weeks of infection for your body to produce sufficient numbers of antibodies to be accurately tested. 

 

"A test made by Bioperfectus detected antibodies in 100 percent of the infected samples, but only after three weeks of infection. None of the tests did better than 80 percent until that time period, which was longer than expected, Dr. Hsu said."

 

More importantly for me is this quote.

 

“None of the tests could say whether the presence of these antibodies means a person is protected from reinfection, however."

 

This tells me that there is going to be some trial and error as we reopen our economy.  When people go back to work there is going to be another increase in infections and hopefully it will not crush our health care system again once it recovers and we are better able to react to it.  Don't be to provide information to contact tracers.  This will only be a temporary process until we have a vaccine to combat this illness.

 

If you are worried about privacy and use the Internet or carry a cell phone then that is already a mute issue.  Nothing on the net is private.

 

 

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tom2p

 

I can't read the article - don't have a subscription 

 

practice the guidelines - and even more so if you are a senior and / or have underlying conditions 

 

remember a test is not only less than 100% accurate - it's only a snapshot in time ... 3 hours later or 3 days later or 3 weeks later you could be infected  - and same with those around you 

 

you live in Ohio where there are currently around 940 Covid 19 deaths ...

 

a typical flu season probably claims around 2000 lives in the state of Ohio ... what does that tell you ?  - nothing - just to put it in perspective 

 

every day of our lives we are faced  with risk 

 

Two things I've drilled into my kid's heads :

 

#1 - do the right thing 

 

#2 - life is an obstacle course ;  even if you don't take risks you can (and likely will) be presented with challenges in your future 


do what you feel is necessary to minimize risk 

 

 

Edited by tom2p
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CCW

Here is where Connecticut stands today.  Good news is that hospitalizations have gone down for three days in a row.  My town has 67 cases as of today.

 

image.png.e4a82472235dab5124d79ff7d355d3bf.png

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