We’ve been dealing with this since the end of March in Hawaii. So far the court challenges have gone in the state’s favor. A bigger issue is quarantine enforcement: we’re regularly arresting violators, but we mainly catch them when they post on social media or taunt their neighbors or attack hotel clerks. I assume these are way outnumbered by all the ones who aren’t outright stupid or belligerent.
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I made it to my favorite oceanside park yesterday for the first time since returning tofrom Norway, so just in time. There were lots of people there, but as far as I could see they were mainly socially isolating in family groups. I worry a bit that in the case of beach parties – which this is meant to prevent – it will just move the parties indoors, where the risk of infection is higher.
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for asymptomatic cases it appears to still be an open question. this just published paper mentions the 27% nasal swab false negative study @anon29537550 mentioned and the authors also reviewed 5 preprint studies with ranges from 2% to 29% with the caveat
However, the certainty of the evidence was considered very low because of the heterogeneity of sensitivity estimates among the studies, lack of blinding to index-test results in establishing diagnoses, and failure to report key RT-PCR characteristics Taken as a whole, the evidence, while limited, raises concern about frequent false negative RT-PCR results.
according to the authors, basically, nobody quite knows and more study is needed
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2015897
this news article i found from oregon has some pretty good details on how testing works:
it also says:
an RT-PCR test for COVID-19 is at its most accurate about three days after symptoms appear, with a false negative rate of about 22%.The false negative rate climbs slowly as the disease progresses. By the time patients are feeling very ill, 16 days after symptoms start, as many as 66% of swabs come back with false negatives.
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Well, that is kind of horrifying, considering people were told not to get tested unless they were symptomatic for the first two or three months of this mess. Makes you wonder how much THAT has skewed the death totals…
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AFAIR it is known since about Febuary: Covid-19 starts in the throat, and then moves to the lung. So, nasal swaps can only catch the virus in roughly the first week. I would assume a clinician would ask about symptoms and test accordingly. The virus can be detected in sputum, and faeces after a couple of days, and at least in faeces for a very long time during the infection. Testing faeces is difficult, but sputum should be easy.
22 % false negatives for the first phase of the infection still strikes me as terribly bad, and double testing is of course a way to get more confident with the results, and if the 22 % would only apply to one nasopharyngeal swab and not to a patient, this would reduce the general false negative.
I will try to look at the sources later today or tomorrow, thank you guys so much.
I definitely want to stress that we are now discussing details, and that I have the feeling that afterwards we need to rephrase the 20-30% figure to make it clear that individually, as a patient, you would not have such a high danger of a false negative.
I think this is important. Noone should be under the impression that testing “does not work”. Everyone should be cautious, but that’s something different entirely.
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Paging Dr. Hubris… Dr. Hubris…
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There is a similar issue with California COVID-19-specific unemployment benefits, where the traditional certification portal states that affected citizens must seek new employment, even though their official award letter states that they don’t, and benefits are still paid.
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OK, let’s see if I can get this straight…the child of (possibly) separated parent held a party in that parent’s house (in which child does not reside) while parent was away?
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That or the child is an adult just borrowing a parent’s house. I tried to get more information from other newspapers, but they are being pretty cagey over things like what municipality it was or how old was the child.
The last week has seen a major uptick in cases in Norway, and other than the stupid cruise ship they mainly seem connected to parties.
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That is awesome.
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Sadly, every cent cheaper will just reinforce the anti-vaxxer’s, QAnon, “OMG THEY ARE INJECTING US WITH TRACKING CHIPS”, conspiracy theories.
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They’re starting to make me wish the tracking chip thing was true. Part of me would feel better knowing where this stuff is coming from, and where the anti-vaxxers are - so I can stay as far away as possible.
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Of course, we are pretty much all already wearing tracking chips. They are in those glowy screen boxes we all have our faces in all the time. No need to invent nanoscale tracking chips that fit through a 24 or 30 gauge needle.
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