I'm curious how they figure this out? It's easy for false negatives by looking at people that had confirmed diagnoses. But if the antibody tests aren't accurate, how are they figuring out that people hadn't actually ever had the disease? A different antibody test?
good question! I read that the issue with these quick test is they detect other coronavirus (e.g. cold) as a positive. I figure these quick test are validated with a slower more time consuming expensive version that can differentiate better between the various coronavirus.. just a guess.
So here's my little rant after Trump's deal with the rambling about getting UV light and disinfectant inside the body. Trump is Trump he says a lot of ridiculous stuff. We know this by now. He presented those ideas in almost a childlike fashion (and I don't really mean that in too pejorative of a sense). For me, it's just frustrating that people are mocking the rambling comments and not recognizing that there is a way to do exactly what he was saying in a very simple fashion. I really wish that the CDC, Trump's expert team, and the critics that were laughing at him would have taken his comments just one step SLIGHTLY further. We do have a way to get these things inside your body. We also have things called PILLS that you can swallow that go inside your body and give your body more vitamin D. FOOD high vitamin D is another thing we can put inside our body as well. Also, we can also go outside and stand in the SUN which shines UVB LIGHT on your skin and allows your body to produce vitamin D. Vitamin D plays a major role in helping the body's "disinfectant"/immune system. There are MANY studies documenting vitamin D, it's immune function role and the problems that occur when vitamin D is deficient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/ In humans, vitamin D is obtained from the diet or it is synthesized it in the skin (reviewed in [1]). As vitamin D is cutaneously produced after exposure to UV B light, its synthesis is influenced by latitude, season, use of sunblock and skin pigmentation. Melanin absorbs UVB radiation inhibiting the synthesis of vitamin D from 7-dihydrocholesterol. Meaning if you are dark skinned and/or don't get enough sun exposure then you need to take vitamin D supplements or eat foods high in vitamin D. Further, the elderly only make about 25% of the vitamin D as 20 year olds do after exposure to the same amount of sunlight. Vitamin D has been used (unknowingly) to treat infections such as tuberculosis before the advent of effective antibiotics. Tuberculosis patients were sent to sanatoriums where treatment included exposure to sunlight which was thought to directly kill the tuberculosis. Cod liver oil, a rich source of vitamin D has also been employed as a treatment for tuberculosis as well as for general increased protection from infections There have been multiple cross-sectional studies associating lower levels of vitamin D with increased infection. One report studied almost 19,000 subjects between 1988 and 1994. Individuals with lower vitamin D levels (<30 ng/ml) were more likely to self-report a recent upper respiratory tract infection than those with sufficient levels, even after adjusting for variables including season, age, gender, body mass and race. Vitamin D levels fluctuate over the year. Although rates of seasonal infections varied, and were lowest in the summer and highest in the winter, the association of lower serum vitamin D levels and infection held during each season. Another cross-sectional study of 800 military recruits in Finland stratified men by serum vitamin D levels. Those recruits with lower vitamin D levels lost significantly more days from active duty secondary to upper respiratory infections than recruits with higher vitamin D levels (above 40nmol). There have been a number of other cross-sectional studies looking at vitamin D levels and rates of influenza as well as other infections including bacterial vaginosis and HIV. All have reported an association of lower vitamin D levels and increased rates of infection. One recent well-designed prospective, double blind placebo study using an objective outcome, nasopharyngeal swab culture (and not self report), and a therapeutic dose of vitamin D showed that vitamin D administration resulted in a statistically significant (42%) decrease in the incidence of influenza infection Also at the link you can read about the role of vitamin D, autoimmune issues, and inflammatory problems ...These effects result in decreased production of inflammatory cytokines (IL-17, IL-21) with increased production of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10. Vitamin D also has effects on monocytes and dendritic cells (DCs). It inhibits monocyte production of inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-12 and TNFα. Anyhow, I hope this doesn't distract too much simply because I mentioned this, but I'm trying to provide some sort of constructive outcome for this controversy. Flame away!
I decided to go to the grocery store today and it seemed better stocked on a Saturday than on a weekday. I guess they shoot for better stocked shelves on Saturdays as they know there will be more traffic? The Tom Thumb I go to also replaced their self-checkout stations with new stations that offer 3 bagging areas per station (instead of just one before) and the POS software was updated/new. It was much easier to check out. Still couldn't find any toilet paper, disinfectants, or dish soap. But, everything else was in good supply. I think I'm going to start hitting the store early every day until I can get those items before they sell out. I'm not sure when they stock them?
Yup... gotta go first thing in the morning. I think they restock them on a limited basis after stores close every night or before they open .... on a limited basis.
I know some people that are talking about going to a park to hoop tomorrow so yeah... I saw no difference today and yesterday as opposed to any other day
Here's the daily update... Testing continues to skyrocket. Nationwide 300k tests were processed today and the percent positive dropped again to 13.6%. Texas jumped to 20.2k tests from 17.4k tests yesterday. The rolling 5 day percent positive average now sits at 6% down from 6.5% yesterday. The last two days the percent positive has been 4.9% and 4.8%. Also, the 5 day average of tests processed has nearly doubled over the past week for Texas. New York's testing has also increased significantly over the past 2 days. It was almost 47k tests processed today which is nearly double from a week ago. Their percent positive rate has almost been nearly cut in half over the past 2 weeks and it is down to 22.5% today. All of that good news stated I think deaths will continue to remain elevated for awhile. Awhile back I was hoping they would start trailing off based on the IHME projections https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america, but I've come to realize those projections are the equivalent of a bad weather forecast. We still have a massive number of active cases. About 82% of all cases are still active. I'm still using the unadjusted death numbers from https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily and even using those lower numbers I don't see how we come in under the 67k projected by IHME. I do think the adjusted numbers are likely a more accurate gauge of what is happening. As of right now the unadjusted deaths is at 48k and adjusted is 54k. If the Italy, Spain, France, UK, etc are decent indicators then we won't be seeing deaths per day decline by 50% for at least 3 weeks. My extremely rough calculation based on that means we probably see another 30k-35k deaths over that 3 week period. Initially I thought we would come in under 100k deaths from this wave, but it is looking possible that we go over it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in-idUSKCN2270RX In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus -- 96% without symptoms They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms. “It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities. As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms. The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic — contagious but not physically sick — may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus. “It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.” Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.
I fully agree and we're seeing that with new projections. Claiming people were lying or that the media was out to deceive us or cover things up though ignores that early projections were done with the data that was at hand. Again if we had focused significantly more on testing in the early days we could've had better data as is we're playing catchup. All of that said even if we aren't following the trajectory of early projections as of today almost as many Americans have died of this disease in less than two months with about 50,000 dying just in April as did in Vietnam war which lasted 9 years. This is is serious and claiming that because it's not meeting the worst case estimates as being that the scientific and medical community were lying just erodes confidence that we will need to make it through this crisis and be ready for the next one.
The local sportstalk station I listen to because there is no sports has been doing stuff like having a 64 bracket of best TV show themes. One idea they had was best "Classic" beautiful women. They've brought up names like Tina Louise, Emma Peel, and Barbara Eden. Maybe we could do that for Clutchfans.
I understand that... I think you completely missed my point with everything I wrote and just offered this point as if I was defending Trump. I hope I’m wrong regarding your response. Anyhow, he has experts around him who aren’t talking about vitamin D either. The critics also could have brought it up as well and they could have brought it up to criticize the entire administration for not even bothering to mention something this simple and effective. However, the connection seems to be lost on them as well. It should be obvious to the experts around him and to the experts critical of him. This reminds me of slightly of the mask issue. It was said to be unnecessary etc for the longest time until it wasn’t. It should have been brought up from the very beginning. This is another absurdly simple thing that needs to be brought up for awareness and protection of at risk groups where vitamin D deficiencies are often the worst. Does that make sense?
