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US has bought 29 million doses of Hydroxychloroquine according to Trumps press conference last night.
What I have been told, it gets serious on the 8th day.
By who any proof in your claim was it from big Dave whose cousin knows someone high up in the military?
I thought the 8th day was for rest?
US has bought 29 million doses of Hydroxychloroquine according to Trumps press conference last night.
Probably snatched from the mouths of Albanian pensioners at gun-point 🙂
The reported unreliability of anti body testing for those that had mild/no symptoms.
Things are NOT binary. Amounts matter. So if you have low levels of antibodies they might be below the limit of detection.
The test is specific for antibodies against one particular part of the virus. If you have made some against a different part, they won’t show either. We use the tests every day to see whether patients have made antibodies against the biological drugs we produce. The assays are not as sensitive as the similar ones we use to measure the amount of drug the subject has in their body.
Test for amount of virus, amount of drug, are much more specific because you design them to probe what you know you want to find, so can test for this. The other tests must look broader to what has been produced. You must make a choice based on what the majority seem to have made.
Numbers matter. For those US hydroxychloroquine doses. 29 million doses of 200mg or 29 million course of 1200+600mg/day for 10days (88000 treatments?). Which number would you release?
[TL:DR] tests always have a limit of detection and only look for what you think is important. That makes them fallible. And dose matters.
@TiRed was sent the test kit details vwr are touting on Friday, no dl/ql details.
IgG is relatively accurate where IgM is ~92% sensitive
That is with clinically confirmed cases too.
Appears to be good on detection of positives for IgG but def some false negatives.
Can send the details on if you want.
Hang on – I thought with symptoms we just need to isolate for 7 days?
7 days ONLY if symptoms have stopped. According to my Boris letter.
Hang on – I thought with symptoms we just need to isolate for 7 days?
Errr! No.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
Cheers Tired clear information again and killing the click bait headlines.
Every supplier is sending out a promo for their vivid test kits at the moment, mostly antigen ones, but a couple of antibody ones, there's loads on offer from China, but Italy had a batch that they found had veey poor sensitivity
PHE took our qPCR machines to scale up testing (and several other from colleagues labs) how many have they taken nationally?
Not sure how many they've got online yet, but about 1500 extra tests are being done a day are being done, which is the capacity of maybe 2 machines a day, so there's still bottlenecks elsewhere.
There's also talk of letting research labs doing the testing themselves, but they'd have to send our machines back (& probably get an engineer to set them up again too )
Graham did they take any GSK machines?
Please do.
Blair was very good this morning on testing. Get a minister only on that, report to PM, get industry in.
Public Health England can direct testing and provide the scientific background. But They’ve been found wanting when it comes to scaling. Leave the scaling to organisations that are used to working at scale. Whatever you think of industry, that’s what they do well.
Hey kimbers.
only liquid handling stuff.
they are in the process of setting up an assay dev lab on site at the moment to improve the tests so obviously they can't take the kit away
Also on TF1 news last night was that some patients were still testing positive and an infection risk after a month. That Oxford doctor (linked by someone many pages back) who claimed people could only emit live virus for a week appears to be wrong.
Cheers for the testing responses
The article I read was a bit click baity which is why I asked
.
Maybe I am a bad person but I cannot find a single shred of sympathy for Johnson mainly because his (in)actions have cost thousands upon thousands of lives.
I hope Boris survives this, and it is truly a damascene moment for him.
I hope Boris survives this, and it is truly a damascene moment for him.
This^^^ I'm no fan of his or his cohorts, but I wouldn't wish him dead.As you say hopefully it'll stop him being so arrogant & have a 'Road to Damascus' moment.Strange times indeed...
The test is specific for antibodies against one particular part of the virus. If you have made some against a different part, they won’t show either.
Fascinating. So the immunity that I might develop to the virus could be completely different to that developed by other people? Presumably if the virus mutates in the future then there could be an equally varied re-infection profile depending on how it mutates.
Things are NOT binary. Amounts matter. So if you have low levels of antibodies they might be below the limit of detection.
If we are only testing for the virus on people going into hospital how can we test the antibody test on thosevwith only mild/no symptoms? We dont know who they are.
re: 7 days thing.
disease progression times from infection to death, fever could last fifteen days, the breathing problems for ten or twelve overlapping some of the fever period, but it looks like the 8 day timescale is where you find out whether it has taken hold in the lungs, I guess, which lines up with what TiRed and franksinatra have said.
@Flaperon
Yes that is exactly the issue, each person will create their own unique set of antibodies.
there should be a major level of overlap within the general population though as the body will not just produce a small number of differences antibodies it will produce against whatever antigens it can detect which depending on the level of viral load may be a large number depending on the binding pattern of antibodies.
it is a properly interesting science.
Will be interesting to see if they can identify universal neutralising monoclonal antibody, but that is a lot of work with limited capacity at the moment.
some really cool science though
Angelis - that is exactly the reason for the issue with getting the tests in. To approve it the tests must be shown to be accurate, specific and precise.
to do that you need to know how much antibody has to be present to give an accurate reading, also that the test does not generate false positives or negatives.
if you need help sleeping Google for ich q2 which is the overarching guidance on a assay development and validation
disease progression times from infection to death, fever could last fifteen days, the breathing problems for ten or twelve overlapping some of the fever period, but it looks like the 8 day timescale is where you find out whether it has taken hold in the lungs, I guess, which lines up with what TiRed and franksinatra have said.
Ah! Now I see what anecdote was meaning. Yes, it appears it’s 8 days from initial onset that things can go wrong, that though is not the same as the person who has a fever then by day 7 is feeling much better.
whaaaaaaaaat ?
Gawd bless Murca.
I'd say it is Darwinism, but we all know it isn't quite working like that.
exactly
what I'm understanding (possibly pub fact time)
if it's shifted by day 7 then good chance of recovery, with no further problems
if it's not, and breathing difficulties develop, hospital time
I note the side effect of that graph is the delay to reporting the death toll from first infection is massive. Our confirmed cases figures in UK, will be measured at point of hospitalisation as I understand it, which means they too are lagging by about two weeks from infection.
@TiRed , your contributions to this thread are exceptional, thank you. Very educational.
Thanks. It is part of my day job, but I have always enjoyed communicating science. It is a priviledge and a responsibility to do so. If you can't communicate the message clearly, how well do you really understand it? That's my mantra.
I hope Boris survives this, and it is truly a damascene moment for him.
Probably better that he does because he'd be held up as some kind of martyr if he dies. Anyway they'll no doubt have one of those blood oxygenation machines on standby for him. Question is depending on how bad he gets will he be able to perform the job afterwards?
I'm apt to give Boris and the government the benefit of the doubt, they are hardly alone amongst nations in underestimating COVID-19 and being woefully unprepared. At a more structural level, I was reading some stuff about how years of hollowing out the state, specifically healthcare, i.e., the public-private partnerships, the outsourcing, the internal markets, etc., have significantly weakened the state's ability to coordinate with vigour against coronavirus. Like a war it's not really something you can let the market take care of. Furthermore, the NHS and PHE don't seem to coordinate well or share information systematically.
Hang on – I thought with symptoms we just need to isolate for 7 days?
Which raises a question I asked a week ago in response to SOM posting this:
The symptoms that drag on are your body’s response to the virus, but the virus is gone after a few days. I take great umbrage at the lengths of time you are meant to be infectious for because it is just not true. Nine days is nonsense. You don’t excrete a live virus that long.
For about 72 hours of a viral infection you have a live virus. In children it can last for longer – four or five days have been observed in flu.
So that's a pretty credible source telling us the virus itself is gone very quckly. Is the Prof wrong? Do patients in Boris's position still shed viable live virus on day 8 and beyond?
Nearly everything she says there in that article is qualified as being based on how previous viruses have behaved. That bit is not, but nor does she provide any evidence that this particular virus is behaving in the way she describes for everyone.
Nearly everything she says there in that article is qualified as being based on how previous viruses have behaved. That bit is not,
Given she says "a viral infection" not 'this viral infection' she's clearly referring to CV-esque viruses in general rather than specifically to CV.
The question still stands. Any of the people with domain knowledge tell is if the prof above is right or even better point to a credible link a layman can follow explaining it?
Dazh, that tweet is brilliant!
NEW Sir Keir Starmer says Labour would support a ban on all exercise and even a ban on going to work in "non-essential work places" if people do not obey the lockdown #coronavirus.
It’s the obvious next step. It has had to be taken elsewhere, we have the chance to avoid it here, but it requires everyone acting sensibly, rather than trying to get away with whatever they can within the current laws, advice and instructions.
JOhnson - eff him. He has the blood of thousands on his hands.
Paging Mattoutandabout, is this you?
‘Overnight all my paying work disappeared’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52142423
I wanted to report bigmountainscotland’s post for thread derailment but the “REPORT” link isn’t there.
Makes you think...
Does the report link go if someone has used it?
it requires everyone acting sensibly, rather than trying to get away with whatever they can within the current laws, advice and instructions
Which, by and large, people are doing. Hopefully they will continue next weekend, but IMO we're far enough through the looking glass that any notion of Easter bank holiday will have little impact.
Wonder how much blood Matt Hancock has on his hands…
Is what you're saying that the un-elected less salubrious part of our national government have used this global pandemic to "clean house" and execute those in their own organisation that have displeased them. And that so far, the one and only victim of this is the deputy ambassador to Hungary?
Paging Mattoutandabout, is this you?
‘Overnight all my paying work disappeared’
Not our Matt...
So, the PM is still ‘in charge of the government’, but today’s cabinet meeting has been cancelled. Bonkers. Take a week off, get well, let someone else chair this week’s cabinet work. Government is needed now, it can’t be put on hold while Johnson recovers in hospital.
Is what you’re saying that the un-elected less salubrious part of our national government have used this global pandemic to “clean house” and execute those in their own organisation that have displeased them. And that so far, the one and only victim of this is the deputy ambassador to Hungary?
Nope, but clearly I'm not allowed to discuss any of this for whatever reason...
Loving that Doncaster tweet. So, how much dynamite do we need again?
So, how much dynamite do we need again?
All your suggestion would do is distribute stinking bits of Doncaster over the entirety of South Yorkshire.
Nope, but clearly I’m not allowed to discuss any of this for whatever reason…
How should I have interpreted the phrase "Wonder how much blood Matt Hancock has on his hands…" followed by a link to the death of said deputy ambassador, which also highlighted his previous professional positions in the Arab world.
Obviously I cannot go into details. But this was my day job last week. Just announced...
Vir screen antibodies from recovered patients, select the best single clones and then develop them as potential therapeutics. Think of it as biotechnology upscales the manufacture of the serum. My expertise is the Clinical Development of these agents.
Still feeling as if I have altitude sickness today...
Wouldn't want to deviate from the topic...
Perhaps you could dig up the tweet in question
In the meantime, here is a more on topic tweet:
https://twitter.com/nw_nicholas/status/1245852682654367744
Well done TiRed, I am more than a little envious of your skills.
There's a whole thread on Dyson. Anyway, TPP designed it, Dyson are building it and it utilises their motor tech. TPP know a thing or two about designing medical devices.
Similarly, GSK will not be working alone.
Still feeling as if I have altitude sickness today…
Pummelled and productive - sorry to see you're still having a bad do but it's good to see it's not hampering your ability to sort stuff. Well not too badly?
Re Chris Whitty
According to the Mail Online this morning (sorry!) he is out of isolation and back at work.
Apparently he's the guy that suggested Boris might want to get his cough checked out.
Bigmountainscotland. I think you need to make a distinction between Vallence, who has been very much part of the problem with his backing for the UK's herd approach back in early March and GSK. Vallence is part of the problem, GSK potentially part of the solution and we shouldn't object to GSK being given work they are well placed to do just because it looks like nepotism.
I gave my opinion on Vallence about 30 pages back, he should hang his head in shame and resign for the mess he's contributed to. IIRC something like 200 scientists wrote to challenge his approach at the time and they were right.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but a fundamental part of gsk's work is the development, optimisation and validation of analytical tests, probably to a higher level than routine diagnostic ones used in the nhs.
so I'm sorry but I cannot think of better people to be doing that work
Perhaps not, but a bit of transparency never hurts!
What transparency do you need? Az are working with the government too
There's clearly not enough transparency for me to express all I'd like on this forum...
To not make use of GSK as part of the response to this problem would be criminally negligent.
TiRed - whilst it clearly isn’t good times, it is interesting times to be a scientist!! Good luck with that project - it looks fascinating.
@ bigmountainscotland
Ref the coughing.
You do not need to self-isolate if you just have a cough after 7 days. A cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone.
Have a read of the infomative link Drac posted.
@ bigmountainscotland
Ref the coughing.You do not need to self-isolate if you just have a cough after 7 days. A cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone.
Have a read of the infomative link Drac posted.
To save others a few clicks:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
Well that's me told, thank goodness for herd instinct eh!
Good work by the way TiRed, don't confuse my frustrations at being muted for exposing uncomfortable truths about the dodgy so-and-so's chosen to rule us as a criticism of your important work, appreciate these are trying times for everyone.
For people who enjoy comparing countries:
it is interesting times to be a scientist!! Good luck with that project – it looks fascinating.
Clearly we have not had enogh of experts 😉 . BTW Vallance is not an expert in epdemiology or herd immunity, he had a team advising him (SAGE). Experts may disagree, but normally have informed opinions. His job has been to convey the SAGE advice.
Doing things at scale is what Industry does, don't be surprised at that BMS. I don't speak for GSK, but am proud to work for them. I also share many of your frustrations, particularly with politicians.
Good paper here about how this virus goes about its business
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2196-x
and summed up well by this guy https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1246975275021348865
I'm afraid I agree with him, the level of speciality and sheer deviousness is exactly why I became a virologist too, sadly now lapsed
Obviously, the dust hasn't settled yet, but it appears at least provisionally that the herd immunity advise was bad. Someone will need to be accountable for that. There will be a big post-mortem.
Everyone seen todays results?
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1247185091517911040?s=20
Lots more testing concluded, but positive tests have remained a similar number to the past 7 days.
I was wary that the numbers wernt rising because of limits on testing, but hopefully thats not the case.
Deaths reducing for a 3rd day, which is promising.
The figures from Sat, Sun and today will be revised upwards in the next couple of days as there is some missing data.
Deaths reducing for a 3rd day, which is promising.
Cross everything… and STAY AT HOME
Someone will need to be accountable for that. There will be a big post-mortem.
How exactly do you determine who is responsible for which deaths?
Unless you go back in time 6 months and mandate that everyone buys and maintains 3 weeks worth of food and medicine, and then implement a 100% countrywide lockdown at the ideal point; there is literally no perfect solution.
So what would be a fair number for our politician show trial? per capita deaths over that of Italy, or China?
Do we count those who statistically would have died of flu this year, can we use the reduction of fatal road accidents as credit?
It's the policy advise I'm talking about.
wouldn't that be from the SAGE group?
rydster
Member
Obviously, the dust hasn’t settled yet, but it appears at least provisionally that the herd immunity advise was bad. Someone will need to be accountable for that. There will be a big post-mortem.
Matt Hancock has said that herd immunity was never the plan, but SAGE dccuments seem to say otherwise
SAGE is a multidisciplinary panel comprised of 3 groups
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response
SAGE relies on external science advice and on advice from expert groups. During COVID-19 this includes the:
New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)
Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) (Department for Health and Social Care)
Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B)
The allegations made by the editor of the Lancet, among others, is that too much weight was given to the behavioral scientists input, who Cummings is a big fan of, its called the Nudge Unit & the head received a promotion under Johnson & Cummings as soon as he became PM to 'What Works National Advisor across the whole of Government'- basically advisor to every aspect of government!
this doccument here from the 4th March shows that the nudge unit were pushing herd immunity, even tho other 2 groups in SAGE were not
(thats not to say that input from other groups was great- the modelling team was using very old data on the lethality & initially ignoring what was coming from China, Japan & Italy)
all this added up to the government arguing over whether 'taking it on the chin' was the plan
as Johnson admitted here
https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1246950839278882816
so while the cabinet it out the government went ahead with allowing 3000 Spanish fans to come here from Madrid & 250,000 people to be squeezed in together at Cheltenham Cup
even saying that construction workers could still go to work, 200,000 of the squeezing onto the tube in London
but as deaths in Italy piled up the modelling team changed their data and even cummings stopped believeing in the Nudge unit (though you can still see their hand in the mixed go for a drive/park/exercise vs dont go for a drive/park/exercise confused messages) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-ten-days-that-shook-britain-and-changed-the-nation-for-ever-spz6sc9vb
that initial delay where Johnson & cummings grappled with bad data & their dislike of big state intervention vs mounting scientific evidence from the rest of the world, were the crucial 2-3 weeks when they really should have acted if we wanted to 'flatten the curve', the present growth in deaths, lack of PPE, ventilators, lack of testing reagents & facilities were all exacerbated by those intitial mistakes (imho )
Raab last spoke to Boris on Saturday, is it me or does that not sound good.