Posted on 01/05/2022 11:43:55 AM PST by Openurmind
Here is the entire problem with all the testing at the moment — it is because people are totally uninformed (likely because of internet idiocy and panic that the government is fomenting). In order to have a valid test you have to know what you are testing for. You also have to know how the tests work.
So briefly:
1. Omicron is a URI not an LRI like wild type and delta. That means that the upper respiratory tract should be assayed to have the highest possibility of a valid test. The upper respiratory tract is the most distal part of the nares or the throat (upper respiratory). Although somewhat paradoxical deep nasal swabs are more considered indicative of the lower respiratory tract because deep swabs are beyond the initial immunological structures of the upper airway
2. Because of this — it is entirely likely that home swabs where people are not actually really getting into the nasopharynx (it is very uncomfortable) are getting upper respiratory swabs where you would find omicron. So going and getting a deep swab may infect be negative. Its not where the virus is.
3. We would have to go to the source of the tests for the home tests to examine the (+) predictive value and the (-) predictive value of the test to determine how it is skewed from a bayesian statistical inference. My guess is the home assays and antigenic assays are probably pretty sensitive — meaning that they will preferentially not miss a positive in exchange for a false positive rate that is higher — but that is just a guess
4. As for the PCR, there is a lot of incorrect information that it returns false positives. It returns true positives (either the RNA is there and amplified or not), but the (+) may simply not be all that clinically significant. As I and others have said, PCR (+) at 12 weeks occurs a lot as there are dead partial virons still being cleared. Those particles have amplifiable RNA and therefore turn the test (+). But so what? That is the question that has gotten away from us. It is not exactly a difference without distinction — it is not truly a false positive, it is an irrelevant positive.
5. Testing because of panic has become a total nightmare. Why in the world are we testing for a disease that as we evolve knowledge at the same time is 3x more contagious, but causing 2/3 less hospitalization. In other words a ninefold decrease in severity. And I think that is an underestimate. In the hospital where I work I have had 10 or 11 (+) tests for a procedure where the patient was admitted for something else and shocked to find they had Omicron. The question becomes — so what?
6. We are essentially now able to name a common cold syndrome and have known forever that corona viridae cause URI as well as LRI — so we can name the URI. Because it appears to be entirely self limited — who cares? The only reason to get a medical test is to alter a treatment pathway. This is not why people are being manically tested for Omicron — its about the fear.
Looking back historically in the last H1N1 when Obama was president and Biden was VP, they simply stopped testing (I think it was around 2010) and that ended the worry and the clamor. H1N1 was particularly nasty and caused a lot of problems for Middle Aged adults and the younger set. But the political environment necessitated that the conversation be stopped. Now the democrats in power are governing based on the usual liberal ideas of fear and control, so there is no way this will stop — at least until rational people finally start asking why the hell we are testing like this — who cares?
It seems me that the decoupling of fear and information is occurring — we have over half a million cases, the power set are trying to drive a control theory, and people are not biting. Consider the Chicago Teacher Union — they are stopping school, but being criticized for the same. Something that is very rare for a liberal union in a liberal city.
People are slowing coming around. But we must and should be guided by what is instead of what we would like to be.
P.S. it happened during the summer invasion in Florida. Early August.
That is a real nonsequiter. You presented information that is patently false. If you choose not to believe the information because you think the CDC is lying, then so be it. But the actual tests and panels distinguish between diseases. I run these panels on a regular basis. Instead of getting an answer to one disease process off a swab, I get 6 tests.
Its just like the draw one tube of blood and get 7 chemistries, liver profile, bilirubin totals, and protein. Its called a panel for a reason.
I am not required to parrot anything and do not have my license threatened — so that is a mother nonsequiter. Its total crap. It is my job to present what actually it, but you can believe it or not.
STAND alone PCR are no longer EUA as they are absorbed into respiratory panels. That is the reason. Not that the tests were inaccurate.
All the “PCR was discontinued on 31 Dec” folks are going to be confused how the PCR test is still the primary test for COVID. But they’ll never admit they were wrong.
The antigenic tests and PCR assay for the actual virus. Not antibodies. Interpretation of these tests if they are (+) and accurate are that you have the disease presently. The will not find vaccination status or previous infection except in the case of PCR up to 12 weeks post primary infection as described above.
So, the answer appears to be ‘yes’.
Sorry for your loss.
The difference is one test detects: an enzyme; the other: a piece of one segment of a specific virus protein which needs to be magnified by hundreds of thousands to a billion, even a trillion times, to register on the test.
See the sense in that difference?
;-)
You have just captured the art of testing — you have to know what you are looking for, the best way to find it, and to time it correctly to make a test accurate — Its not just something that can be reduced to a bullet point on the internet.
“… The new covid test that they just read out is actually a Covid & Flu test in one. It will tell you whether you have neither, one or the other, or both.
Previously, to get that much information they would have to give you both a covid test and a flu test.”
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Yes, one of our neighbors was feeling a little ill and went to have a “COVID test”. The results came back that she didn’t have COVID-19 but DID have Influenza Type A.
Great post. I especially like this part:
“ at least until rational people finally start asking why the hell we are testing like this — who cares?”
I have said this from the very beginning. The only numbers that ever mattered to me were hospitalizations and deaths, not case numbers, and especially when testing asymptomatic people. That has never made any sense other than the politics of it. It may have made sense in January or February of 2020, and maybe even March, but once it was really in the wild, the contact testing was uncalled for.
“You presented information that is patently false.”
No I did not... This is exactly what is happening in my family right now in real time as the results are coming in.
First hand from medical professionals at risk of losing their careers against the Dr. CDC gaslighting...
Correct, and thank you.
“I think they just show an active infection. From what I understand you have to have a lab do an antibody test to see if you already had it or not. Which most would probably have a doctor’s orders to get? Probably depends on your state laws. Maybe some states will allow 3rd party walk in labs to do it without the doctor referral?”
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No, at least in Maryland, you don’t need a prescription to get the antibody tests. You can just go in and take the test as long as you pay for it. It’s not free and (our) insurance doesn’t routinely cover it. They’ll email and/or call when the results come back.
I am sorry to hear that also...
Thank you for sharing that tidbit about local laws. :)
“But the actual tests and panels distinguish between diseases. I run these panels on a regular basis. Instead of getting an answer to one disease process off a swab, I get 6 tests.”
Home tests... Do they do this? Does it get put it through 6 panels?
The patently false information referred to is that the PCR does not distinguish between CoVID and Influenza, and what made by another poster. I am not doubting the veracity of what you have said you have personally witnessed, but I do doubt the accuracy in which the tests were procured.
Again, its about knowing what you are testing for and it is very plausible that a nasopharyngeal PCR would be negative for omicron as described above
No — home tests are specific to COVID, the PCR you are referring to as not being able to distinguish does in fact distinguish between six pathogens with one swab.
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