Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[jthompson]

"so, what teacher pay grade will you be putting me on?"

 

You won't need money when you're a HERO!

[6Foot2]

Link: New IHU Covid variant with 46 mutations worries experts in France | The Independent

 

While the world is grappling with the highly infectious Omicron, strain of Covid, scientists in France have identified a potentially worrying new variant, which has 46 mutations.

 

Named IHU, the new B.1.640.2 variant has so far infected 12 people living in southeastern France. The first case was linked to a person with a travel history to Cameroon, western Africa, said researchers in a paper published on medRxiv.

 

However, experts were quick to announce that just because a new variant had been discovered, that did not necessarily mean IHU will prove as infectious as other strains, including Omicron.

 

In the analysis, the authors found “46 mutations” which had not been spotted in other countries, nor labelled a variant under investigation by the WHO.

 

The genomes were obtained by next-generation sequencing. The authors of the paper claimed that the person who was idenitifed with the IHU variant, was fully-vaccinated. The person tested positive for covid after returning from a three-day trip to Cameroon.

 

The authors of the research paper said "subsequent detection... of three mutations in the spike gene to screen for variants... did not correspond to the pattern of the Delta variant involved in almost all SARS-CoV-2 infections at that time”...

[jmak]

Our local hospital issued instructions to staff before Christmas to prepare for a "covid rota" from 10th January. That means cancel all elective surgery and treatment, cancel all out patient clinics other than emergencies like cancer, fracture, cardiac. Redeploy junior doctors and nurses released by cancelling work to covid wards. It was a "be ready" instruction. They implemented it last Friday, which was a good decision as there weren't enough staff to cover planned work this week due to covid absence.

 

Not entirely sure why it was news that Lincolnshire hospitals declared "internal critical incident". Hospitals near us have been in and out of internal critical incident for the last year (in between, red alert was good, black alert (worse) was normal).

 

I really hope we don't need more stringent restrictions on daily life - it's detrimental to a lot of people's lives. But claiming the NHS is ok doesn't reflect reality.

[elsiegee40]

Novak Djokovic held up in Melbourne airport with visa issue after receiving vaccine exemption entry for Australian Open

 

http://news.sky.com/story/novak-djokovic-held-up-in-melbourne-airport-with-visa-issue-after-receiving-vaccine-exemption-entry-for-australian-open-12509654

[elsiegee40]

….

[hardtailstar]

Scam emails are heading around (again).

 

Quite a few friends have had 'You must isolate' emails that look genuine but have slight grammatical issues and a dodgy link.

 

Luckily they didn't click on the link and informed others on social media.

 

 

In other news, mask wearing in school seems to be a lot more this side of Christmas.

[6Foot2]

Novak Djokovic held up in Melbourne airport with visa issue after receiving vaccine exemption entry for Australian Open

 

http://news.sky.com/story/novak-djokovic-held-up-in-melbourne-airport-with-visa-issue-after-receiving-vaccine-exemption-entry-for-australian-open-12509654

Link: Novak Djokovic denied entry to Australia after visa revoked at airport | The Independent

 

Novak Djokovic, the men’s world No 1 tennis player, was denied entry into Australia on Thursday after initially being granted a medical exemption for the country’s Covid-19 vaccination requirements so that he could play in the Australian Open.

 

Djokovic, who was left stranded at Melbourne’s Tullamanrien airport overnight, was issued a letter by the Australian government saying his visa had been denied and he would be deported, a source revealed.

 

The Australian Border Force confirmed Djokovic had failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the country’s entry requirements, causing his visa to be cancelled.

 

The tennis star was filing an injunction to prevent his deportation, the source said.

 

Djokovic, who is seeking a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam win at the Australian Open, touched down at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport Wednesday about 11:30 pm local time after a 14-hour flight from Dubai.

 

But he was still awaiting permission early Thursday morning to enter the country after it emerged that his team had applied for a visa that does not allow for medical exemptions.

 

That prompted the local government of Victoria, the state where the Open is played, to say it would not support Djokovic’s application, putting his fate in the hands of the federal government and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

 

The extraordinary move by the Australian government to block Djokovic from entering the country because of a mistake on his visa form threatened to cause a diplomatic incident between Canberra and Belgrade...

[mavhc]

You don't need to confirm an LFT test with a PCR test, LFT tests are 99% specific, if it's positive, you have it.

[the_quick]

I think LFTs have improved a lot since we started using them. Still the main problem with accuracy if they are used properly. If people don't put the swab properly up the nose, just barely in - the test not going to detect it probably.

 

On another note, there were few storied on the radio yesterday, where people had 2 LFT tests positive, but a negative PCR - just wonder if the labs are making mistakes again.

[jthompson]

I guess there's a world of difference between "don't need to confirm a positive LFT with PCR" and "don't need to do a PCR if you do an LFT", which may get lost in translation quite easily.

[Garacesh]

I guess there's a world of difference between "don't need to confirm a positive LFT with PCR" and "don't need to do a PCR if you do an LFT", which may get lost in translation quite easily.

 

Yeah, but our lot aren't very good at communicating, are they?

Positive LFT 99% means it's COVID (I've seen some chatter about certain foods or drinks showing positive, but how true those are, YMMV.. We all know the tall tales told to kids.. Conkers in vinegar, Mew under the truck, etc)

The main issue is that LFT's are only around.. 55%, was it?

 

Then again, you'd hope anybody showing symptoms would be testing themselves daily anyway, so with luck, they're only walking around spewing COVID for a day or two at worst. And anybody with stealth-COVID would be unlikely to get a PCR anyway. So they'll still be going about their day-to-day lives as normal (which may or may not include regular LFT's)

 

To be honest, my main concern isn't that people aren't getting a PCR test to confirm they have covid, as said, a positive LFT is pretty solid, it's that PCR tests are how we're tracking COVID spreading, and how we're getting alerted to new flavours popping up. The fewer people getting PCR tests, the less information we know about the state of COVID in the UK. And that's a bad idea, IMO.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Garacesh

[mavhc]

Most PCR tests are never sequenced though, only about 1%

 

Doing the test wrong is why you need 2 negative tests in a row

[Ditto]

I'm confused. What figure is the 55% referencing? I'd be interested to know more on LFT vs PCR. @mavhc says 99% specific. How does PCR compare? What about sensitivity comparison? A couple of things on PCR's. One, I think they are more 'official' and do trigger Track and Trace. Also, a percentage get sequenced so that tells us more about how variants are spreading. I don't think either of those happen with LFT, but happy to be corrected.

[jthompson]

I think 55% is going to be the false negative rate, 99% the false positive rate. That's why someone with symptoms needed to get a PCR even if their LFT was negative, since there was a roughly 50% chance that that LFT result was wrong. Or something.

 

Another thing with LFT vs PCR is that LFT is useful only within a period of a few days following infection, whereas PCR will be sensitive for quite a while afterwards. I don't know if that's what's behind the 55% false negative rate or whatever (i.e. tests being taken too early or too late following infection).

[Ditto]

Most PCR tests are never sequenced though, only about 1%

 

Doing the test wrong is why you need 2 negative tests in a row

Every PCR test I've done was self administered in exactly the same way as LFT so I can't follow that logic. Sure some were done in a car park but hardly monitored. One was postal, so identical to LFT.

[Ditto]

I think 55% is going to be the false negative rate, 99% the false positive rate. That's why someone with symptoms needed to get a PCR even if their LFT was negative, since there was a roughly 50% chance that that LFT result was wrong. Or something.

 

Another thing with LFT vs PCR is that LFT is useful only within a period of a few days following infection, whereas PCR will be sensitive for quite a while afterwards. I don't know if that's what's behind the 55% false negative rate or whatever (i.e. tests being taken too early or too late following infection).

 

I thought the current thinking for LFT is for testing when you don't have symptoms and can pick up cases before the viral load peaks. It's all got very confusing. I agree PCRs can show positive longer after you can transmit and that you are beyond being infectious. I don't see any benefit in that and can be negative keeping people isolating longer than needed.

[Garacesh]

I'm confused. What figure is the 55% referencing? I'd be interested to know more on LFT vs PCR. @mavhc says 99% specific.

 

55% accurate at detecting it (so marginally better than a 1-in-2 chance), but of that 55%, 99% of the positives would actually be covid

[jthompson]

I thought the current thinking for LFT is for testing when you don't have symptoms and can pick up cases before the viral load peaks. It's all got very confusing. I agree PCRs can show positive longer after you can transmit and that you are beyond being infectious. I don't see any benefit in that and can be negative keeping people isolating longer than needed.

 

I think what PCR brings to the table really is just its huge sensitivity. A sub-optimal swab for a PCR may be far less likely to produce a false negative compared to a similarly sub-optimal swab for an LFT. The fact that it can detect a months old infection, or whatever, is probably just coincidental rather than a useful feature as such.

 

The thing about everybody doing routine LFTs twice a week even when they have no symptoms is to detect asymptomatic cases (or at least a usefully significant proportion of them) in the 3-4 days after infection. That may still just be detecting cases at their viral peak, though.

 

But yeah, I dunno, all quite confusing.

[jmak]

Relevant to discussion above and more interesting/less sensationalist than the headline:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/07/the-rise-of-lateral-flow-tests-are-these-heroes-of-the-pandemic-here-to-stay?

[mikeprice]

ANother forum I frerquent has a similar thread to this

 

but we seem to have attracted an anti vax person - although he does seem to be sincere

 

he commented a while ago about there being "over a thousand highly qualified doctors that think teh vaccine is fake"

 

so, of course, people challenged him to post the list

 

and then called him out on not having posed it

 

so yesterday he did!!

Seems like he really thought this is it - debunk THIS!!!

 

I only noticed it when I logged on this morning - by which time people had randomly selected names and checked them out - lots of people doing a few each

 

Andrew Wakefield was one of them

but all the others that people checked were of the same standard

 

he has been well and truly shown up!!!

hopefully it will at least shut him up - if we are lucky he might even start thinking more clearly!

[mavhc]

I had a +ve LFT 14 days after the infection event, not retested yet

[mikeprice]

Our daughter-in-law had Covid just before Christmas - people she worked with had it so she did a test

 

Her partner works in a local hospital - in the operating theatres doing serious medical stuff

 

he was not over happy about her sampling technique for the LFT she did - so he did the samples for her properly

 

 

I do wonder how many people 'do a test' and it comes back negative because they don;t like the feeling and didn;t take the sample well enough

 

I presume 'someone' has checked this out???

[LeMarchand]

if we are lucky he might even start thinking more clearly!

 

:flypig:

 

Some of the less loony anti-vaxxers make the case that it hasn't been tested enough and long term effects are unknown. They're probably right. EXCEPT the short term effects of an insufficiently inoculated population ARE known, so they're giving a possible future problem a higher consideration than a definite current problem. Do they also avoid all tech less than a few decades old as its long term effects have yet to be seen?

[elsiegee40]

:flypig:

 

Do they also avoid all tech less than a few decades old as its long term effects have yet to be seen?

 

Yes. See wifi and 5G protests…

[jmak]

mRNA is a novel technique for producing vaccines, but in the end it's a substance injected to induce an immune response, just like any other vaccine, so a pretty well tested methodology.

 

Arguably it's much more thoroughly tested than most vaccines released to market. It would normally take decades to test it on billions of subjects of all different ages, genders, ethnicity and medical histories.

 

I know I'm preaching to the converted, just can't help myself. Had a conversation about this with an idiot family member today which has made me more irritated than normal.