I also received a text from the NHS regarding flu jab. I haven’t done much research into it but I’m 31 and a moderate smoker, is it a good idea for me to get a flub jab?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
UK, 10 deaths, 1940 cases
I'm 49 but gonna have it for the first time this year - we get sent vouchers in work. Would hate to get flu that could have been avoided and die from a heart attack worrying it was something worse.
If you can get it for free, I’d get it. It’s not 100% effective (in fact, a long way short of that) but it will reduce your chances of catching flu. With all the “it’s just a bad flu” chat about covid I think people are forgetting how nasty it is to catch influenza. Most people who have flu have a different, much milder illness. The real deal is fecking horrendous. It makes you feel like death warmed up for ages and does very occasionally kill young healthy people.
Maybe you live in an area where there’s a lot of covid? That would be a good reason to do mass influenza vaccinations.
Interesting publication about serological testing and role of IgA
tl;dr Serological surveys might be underestimating community exposure/immunity by only testing for some of the antibodies involved in fighting infection.
tl;dr Serological surveys might be underestimating community exposure/immunity by only testing for some of the antibodies involved in fighting infection.
What a soft arse post this is. You actively hope young peoples grandparents catch Covid then get offended because someone calls you a cnut for hoping that.
World truly is going mad.
We also dont have much affordable housing in those new builds. So most people are probably living in older, potentially even smaller dwellings.I can only go off the many studies and articles on it over the last two decades describing it as so. Getting worse with new builds and flats popping up on small parcels of land the councils are now selling.
Been going on for about two decades with very small new builds. So many large homes have been divided into flats now over the last 20 years and even typical semi-detached house are being split into flats such is the squeeze for living space.
Oldham springs to mind with tight
industrial revolution, terraces and narrow pavements. Which probably contributed to it being one of the highest rates in England a few weeks back.
They use Ischgl as an example to support their case. The study in Ischgl had 614 positive for lgG and 10 for lgA. So the difference wasn't significant in that case.
True. Although they also reference a study from Luxembourg, where there seems to be a much bigger difference (2% positive for IgG vs 11% positive for IgA)
I wonder if the difference is severity/viral load? The ski resorts sounded like an absolute germfest. Might be different in normal community?
I was thinking exactly the same. All those northern industrial towns and cities still have run-down Victorian terraces with small yards and an alley running behind. Bradford is absolutely awful in the inner-city areas, some of those houses are like slums. They open straight into the front room from the pavement, too.
I used to visit houses when I was a midwife where people were crammed in and the kids slept downstairs on the sofas. I doubt if that's changed. No-one had a private space, it was all shared.
On page 10 it seems that specificity explains it. Didn't feel like reading more after that, so don't know if they take it into account.
I don’t think specificity would explain that big a difference (201/1820 +ve for IgA vs 35/1820 +ve for IgG). The specificity for IgA is 89%. So assuming 1 in 10 false positives you’d still have 180 true positives for IgA. The authors seem to think it might be more down to timing. That they might generate IgA first, then IgG later. Either way, it does make sense to test for both types of antibodies in serological surveys. Which isn’t always happening.
Last edited:
Yeah, brainfart from me.
I continued reading, don't know. Odd for the studies to be so totally at odds. But there are several places with 40-60% antibody results (Ischgl, Bergamo, some place in Ecuador and others), so I don’t think the significance is that large.
Yep. I think the masks are just to make people feel better, like they’re “doing something”
I do think masks and hand sanitising stations etc are more for calming public nerves at this point. Don't get me wrong I still wear masks in shops. But for instance, watching people spend ages spraying down their trolleys when they're about to go around the supermarket. Just an exercise in futility, albeit a calming one.
Sanitising your hands in a shop has to be a positive thing. They've been very good here, every little shop has sanitiser, some have paper towels to wipe trolley handles with it.
If it's there, I use it.
If it's there, I use it.
Hmm. I don't think specificity means that actually. Doesn't 89% specificity mean that around 11% are false positives from the whole sample's true negatives, not just the positive ones? Which would explain the difference totally, as lgG had specificity of 98%. One of us is confused (or both
)Specificity: (number of true negatives)/(number of true negatives+false positives)
I’m afraid you’ve lost me! My very basic understanding of specificity is that it’s a measure of how reliable a positive result is. Nothing to do with negative results. With 89% specificity that means that 89 out of every 100 positives are true positives. 1 in 10 positives is a false positive.Hmm. I don't think specificity means that actually. Doesn't 89% specificity mean that around 11% are false positives from the whole sample's true negatives, not just the positive ones? Which would explain the difference totally, as lgG had specificity of 98%. One of us is confused (or both
Specificity: (number of true negatives)/(number of true negatives+false positives)
Sensitivity is the parameter that matters when it comes to how reliable a negative result is.
Last edited:
They are handy, but I always click the button with my elbow, part of my shirt or someting similar since the button that flashes the juice is something that can easily transmit the virus.
Some corporate Tory wank who thought Choose Life was irony-free and aspirational.
We have never aimed for true eradication, at least at the federal level. Functional eradication might be possible although there will probably be further outbreaks at least until there is a full vaccine roll out, and of course even then not everyone will get the vaccine and it won't work for every single person. However, I think in some countries the levels of vaccination may be far higher than usual which will help. Hard to say until we have a vaccine and when we do how effective it is.
They are aiming for a very very high % uptake of a vaccine so if it is a half decent one the R will be below 1, and that might be the best you can hope for. Originally they were going to make the vaccine compulsory but then backed away from that when they realised truly compulsory means holding people down and sticking a needle in them. It wouldn't surprise me if kids attending school and childcare required vaccination and possibly access to social payments and tax breaks. Amazing how Karen from Byron Bay stopped being quite so convinced that vaccines caused autism once their family tax benefit was threatened. Then again that wild Kombucha isn't cheap.
As long as you don't lick your fingers between pushing the button and using the hand sanitiser I'd say you should be ok.
From what I have read (which could be wrong or I have misinterpreted) that is my understanding as well.
100% specificity means all positives detected were correctly identified. 100% sensitivity means all negatives were correctly identified.
Yep. I had the full thing that turned to pneumonia as would have hospitalised me if I didn't have to keep working (self employed at the time). I've been immunised for flu every year since. I have only had something that might have been flu once since and even that could have been something else. I got it straight after a day in Beijing on my way to UK/Ireland so maybe it was another "Chinese" virus?
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vacci...e flu vaccine is free,2016 and 31 August 2018)
In one of these group maybe?
Either way get it. Everyone should even if you have to pay for it.
I am semi-confident I am right. Let's say the samples are from 2018, so all of them should be negative. I am saying 89% specificity means that 11% would be false positives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity
I think we’re agreeing with each other! That’s my interpretation too. They found 201 people IgA +ve but 11% of those positives were actually negative.
We are not. You are saying 11% out of 201, I am saying 11% out of the (around) 1800.
Really that’s what you’d expect/hope to see. The virus obviously hasn’t suddenly become less dangerous. It’s far too early for that. So as cases rise, deaths will too. But the fact that both metrics are rising much slower than in the first wave proves that the ongoing social distancing measures are working. And that’s the best we can hope for. The curve is being flattened. So long as the hospitals aren’t being overwhelmed then our goal is being achieved.
Last edited:
But a false positive is a positive that should be negative. So if 11% of the positives are false, then it has to mean 11% of 201. Not 11% of the 1800 who tested negative?
It’s sensitivity that tells you how reliable your 1800 negative test results are i.e. what % of them are false negatives
EDIT. Apologies for boring the tits off everyone else reading this...
Not according to the wiki page:
- Specificity measures the proportion of negatives that are correctly identified (e.g., the percentage of healthy people who are correctly identified as not having some illness).
Isn't that exactly what Pogue was saying?
No.
Actually, I think you’re right and I’m wrong. It’s 11% out of everyone tested that will get a false positive. So the number of positives will be much more inflated by false positives than I thought.
This stuff is such a head melt...
EDIT: That’s still wrong. FFS. Basically wiki is right. Surprise surprise.
Last edited:
Wohoo! You almost made me doubt myself on the Internet
So, a bit like COVID-19 then.....
I've not clicked to read the thread but one stat appears to be adding up the low double digit deaths in the past week If you do that for announced deaths a week to March 16th it's close to 600, not 123, unless someone has poured through daily deaths data and much of the 600 announced that week in March were older dates.
Anyway, deaths in France and Spain have picked up, this will happen as cases rise. There will be a lag and with it being young people mostly it will take time to reach more older and vulnerable people. It should be much less with the awareness, protocols and changed behaviour but younger people do look after older ones and eventually some others will come into contact in general and will inevitably pass it on. I fear the winter with parties, holidays and more closed cramped environments and caution fatigue will be the real test.
Isn't that what you were originally saying?
Now I've confused myself.
I thought sensitivity is the proportion of positives that are correctly identified and specificity the proportion of negatives that are correctly identified?