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Small sample sizes won’t necessarily cause bias per se so long as the sample is carefully selected. When the numbers are as low as, say, Portugal then that becomes almost impossible.The "where is Delta" question is complicated by the monitoring strategy in different countries as well. Some are faster than others (so are only just reporting samples taken in mid May) some monitor almost all cases (Denmark), most cases (UK), few cases (most including Portugal) - so the story is incomplete.
There's a big chance of sampling bias in this smaller data sets. So for example this chart:
It looks detailed but some of the case numbers behind it aren't so convincing.
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Here’s where the FT are getting their data from. Doesn’t get into the methodology behind the sampling in the various countries and includes this disclaimer
Not that it matters very much. Each country will end up making their own judgement calls based on their own data. And they will have a better understanding of exactly how reliable it is.
Countries like Italy who continously say they are at around 1%?
7.7% according to GISAID. Whose data is supplied to them by individual countries. Where are Italy contradicting that %?
Well that was overly facetious of me. Penna is referencing the 1-2%, so I would expect that is what they say in the press. But it does seem some countires are either behind FT on their analysis or spreding misinfromation.
It’s even more complicated than that. As @jojojo alluded to, differing genotyping methodologies between countries mean sometimes the “latest” survey results are from samples collected two weeks ago. In other countries (e.g. UK) there’s a 24 hour turnaround.
I obviously know your point from 1st paragraph. As for 2nd, several countries have made several very simple mistakes throughout pandemic. You seem confident that they won't repeat themselves. I have no idea why you think so.
I’m only discussing the scientific interpretation of these data. How reliable they are and the potential for biased/misleading results.
Fair enough.
Yeah, I think that’s fair. I remember @Arruda making some great points early on last year about how the conventional approach to scientific consensus just doesn’t work in a fast moving scenario like this pandemic.
U.K is currently very close to 80% for first doses with many many more young people ready and willing when called as seen with queues at major hubs in London at the weekend.
Italy has been saying around 1% based on samples done up to 11th June, it was declining slightly in some areas but there have been outbreaks in a couple of towns this last few days.
For what it’s worth, since I posted that they’ve released the latest sampling results from Ireland and they were at 20%. Currently takes a week get the results so the true % probably even higher right now. It never really made sense for us to be so much lower than the Uk when the borders are so permeable.
Ive just had 3 days work in Wellington postponed because of our move to alert level 2. Our vaccination program has gone from everyone vaccinated by the end of August to by Xmas. Currently we have just 1/10th of the population with 2 doses done so we are well behind Europe and other countries. At some point we will have another lockdown of some form, thats inevitable, just hope this delta variant when it sneaks in is able to be suppressed like the original till we can catch up on the vaccination numbers. Good luck, hope they can catch it fast enough.
I think #scottyfrommarketing has set a new target for AU of 50% to get their first shot before the heat death of the universe.
Hahahaaha!!
As they have stopped giving out information to avoid constantly missing targets and apparently also "it isn't a race" so it might as well be the goal.
Why are they so slow with the roll-out, Wibs? Is he a Covid denier or something?
Incompetence. They bought vaccines with politics rather than health in mind. For example we didn't bother ordering any Modetna until last month. In their heads the envisaged a press conference with 12 huge Australian Flags behind them when they announced that the UNI of Queensland vaccine and the AU manufactured vaccine (AZ) would have us all full immunised by October.
That's terrible. They don't have any excuse, it's not as if the pandemic has hit Australia hard. They had the time for upstream planning.
They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. The State governments have gone a great job as best they can handicapped by the idiots at the Federal level.
Wholly psychological in our case as I'm not sure if he actually has to do anything other than wear his old uniform.
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not got sleep all night so i skimmed it. the analysis seems simple enough, the deletion very suspicious.Tweet
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This could be major plot twist on SARS-CoV-2 origin story. I wish I knew enough about genetics to understand it better
@berbatrick?
By contrast, it seems the new preprint says that it (the T28144C, or "S type" is present 6 of 13 samples (Table 1), reversing their relative abundance.
That’s a very impressive review in a short space of time on not much sleep! Thanks.
They made a mistake at the border and for some reason only had 4 people working there. However we are very good at following rules. So, most people will isolate for 72h and then have a test. It is hardly a disaster. The person making the tweet is an idiot.
He’s far from an idiot. He’s the head of the institute tracking variants in the UK. He’s also one of most consistently balanced and pragmatic commentators on these new variants you’ll find on Twitter. Have a look through his feed. It’s the exact opposite of hysterical.
The wording of the tweet clearly makes him an idiot. I know nothing else about him.
Well you know more about him now. Which you could easily have discovered for yourself by clicking on his profile. Nothing in the wording of his tweet makes him an idiot. Unless you confuse the word “could” with “will”.
The change is literally zero. So it could not be disaster. Ok, his tweet is idiotic and he is very knowledgelable man otherwise
The risk is that same slightly selfish fans who chose to travel to Russia might also be selfish enough to decide they don’t need adhere to the 72 hours self-quarantine. Which could potentially see this much more transmissible new variant seeding multiple new outbreaks all over the country, almost simultaneously.The change is literally zero. So it could not be disaster. Ok, his tweet is idiotic and he is very knowledgelable man otherwise
So, it was couple of hundred people. Over 90% of them will do the test. That leaves let's say 50 people, maybe 10% of them are positive. So 5 extra cases.
