When will this shit end?

[fatyeti24]

4 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

 

I think that's being a tad on the generous side.

[ace56blaa]

Have to say watched the whole presidential debate and whilst there's a lot of press saying both candidates were equally terrible. I take issue with that. Joe Biden was actually trying to set out policies and reasons to vote for him. Trump for the most part spewed easily disprovable lies every single second - I get that a huge trump fan base might be into that, but people who might be watching the debate, a little shaken by trumps response to corona, might have lost faith in him even more after that. - Biden actually showed he cared and had a plan. Trump spent the whole time stirring shit and discrediting himself. - Honestly a litle more satisfying to watch than PMqs because trump actually answers questions and indites himself because of that. PMQs is more how can we not answer anything said as to not look bad on that subject. 

Please let Biden win, after that debate i can deal with him

[gizmoman]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

 

The thing is you massively over-state the argument. Do the tests deliver a significant portion of "false-positives*"? Yes. *(I know that's not quite the right term).

Does that make them "all but useless to find out if someone is ill or infectious" as you claimed in your original post?

Not in the slightest.

Matt Hancock says the false positive rate is "less than 1%" but won't elaborate so lets assume for the sake of argument it's actually 0.8%. in my area at the moment the rate of infection is 156 per 100,000 so if we tested 100,000 people randomly we would find the 156 true cases but we would also identify 800 false positives, (100,000 x 0.8%) If you were one of those people identified there would only be about a 20% chance you had the disease. This is why I say it is all but useless as a general test. If you present for a test with the Covid symptoms and you test positive you can be pretty sure you have got it (only a 0.8% chance of it being wrong). So the test works fine as long as you are testing genuine suspected cases.

[rascalpete]

18 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

 

I thought something similar earlier but the fact he could have purposely messed up so reporters focus on that in today’s news conference rather than bigger issues (Cummings style)

[ace56blaa]

2 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Matt Hancock says the false positive rate is "less than 1%" but won't elaborate so lets assume for the sake of argument it's actually 0.8%. in my area at the moment the rate of infection is 156 per 100,000 so if we tested 100,000 people randomly we would find the 156 true cases but we would also identify 800 false positives, (100,000 x 0.8%) If you were one of those people identified there would only be about a 20% chance you had the disease. This is why I say it is all but useless as a general test. If you present for a test with the Covid symptoms and you test positive you can be pretty sure you have got it (only a 0.8% chance of it being wrong). So the test works fine as long as you are testing genuine suspected cases.

what? wouldn't it be 0.8 percent of positive cases. Not of tests overall. So it would be 1-2 cases would be false positives. - You can't say 0.8 percent of all tests are false positives, because that's saying that even some of the negative tests are false positives which is obviously ridiculous. - That's what I'd assume though someone smarter could probably elaborate

Why do you think someone is trying to mess with the number and make covid seem more dangerous than it is. Who has anything to game from that.

Especially from a government point of view, the lockdown and measures have bought them nothing but controversy and criticism and lost them the polling lead.

Obviously you could just be saying that the science is wrong and we are testing wrong and we need better tests. But it just seems like you look for stuff to try and discredit covid being taken as a serious threat, when it is a very serious threat. I often think people fall into these patterns of conspiratory thinking about covid, because they just don't want to face reality that their is a virus killing thousands of people and that their complacency and flouting of the rules could lead to more death and infection.

Like seriously, why else would you be posting so much of this kinda stuff here. I don't want to discredit  you entirely cause i see where you're coming from but what is your view on covid, do you think it's being taking too seriously, do you think that we don't need to put in restrictions. ?

[stuartbert two hats]

8 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Matt Hancock says the false positive rate is "less than 1%" but won't elaborate so lets assume for the sake of argument it's actually 0.8%. in my area at the moment the rate of infection is 156 per 100,000 so if we tested 100,000 people randomly we would find the 156 true cases but we would also identify 800 false positives, (100,000 x 0.8%) If you were one of those people identified there would only be about a 20% chance you had the disease. This is why I say it is all but useless as a general test. If you present for a test with the Covid symptoms and you test positive you can be pretty sure you have got it (only a 0.8% chance of it being wrong). So the test works fine as long as you are testing genuine suspected cases.

For anyone interested in an in depth discussion on the false positives, I highly recommend this episode of More or Less. The most important stat that comes at the end is that the false positive rate is likely far lower - The ONS did a survey in June/July of 112,000 tests, with 50 positive, which is more like .04%

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mr42

I'd recommend listening to the whole thing, but the part I referred to is at around the 14 minute mark.

[zahidf]

My take on trump and his election chances.

 

[Fuzzy Afro]

Speaker Hoyle rejects the Brady amendment because there’s not enough time to debate it, but slams the government for showing disregard to the house. 

[squirrelarmy]

How’s Prime Minster Avoiding Questions going?

[eFestivals]

Just now, squirrelarmy said:

How’s Prime Minster Avoiding Questions going?

Starmer hasn't stumped him ... yet.

[Guest]

Just now, squirrelarmy said:

How’s Prime Minster Avoiding Questions going?

He's just claimed Starmer and Labour aren't supportive enough al because he's being challenged on the restrictions not working in the North.

[zero000]

 

3 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

For anyone interested in an in depth discussion on the false positives, I highly recommend this episode of More or Less. The most important stat that comes at the end is that the false positive rate is likely far lower - The ONS did a survey in June/July of 112,000 tests, with 50 positive, which is more like .04%

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mr42

I'd recommend listening to the whole thing, but the part I referred to is at around the 14 minute mark.

To be fair to Gizmoman there is a recent Lancet paper which estimated the false positive rate is estimated to be 0.8 - 4%: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30453-7/fulltext . I haven't seen the ONS survey but I'm guessing it was random sampling of the population? If that is the case then the base rate is likely to be lower than for the population of people seeking tests with COVID-19 symptoms, which potentially means that there will be even fewer false positives in the group with COVID symptoms.

 

As I've mentioned before there is however a potential problem of false positives from wide scale "moonshot" testing of the population whereby the false positives could be enormous due to the scale of the testing and the error rate:

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3699

 

https://rss.org.uk/news-publication/news-publications/2020/general-news/rss-warn-of-statistical-issues-over-‘moonshot’-pla/

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fuzzy Afro]

2 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

How’s Prime Minster Avoiding Questions going?

Starmer asked why Luton is the only place that’s been in local lockdown that’s now had restrictions lifted and Johnson replied saying “The people of Luton pulled together and followed the guidance”

 

Subtle dig at the northerners IMO

[efcfanwirral]

Can anyone recommend a decent face covering that is comfortable and breathable and looks reasonably smart, while still providing protection?

Price not a problem- its for a funeral. 

[ace56blaa]

Yeah i much preferred watching trump and biden rather than watching Boris Johnson repeat himself and say absolutely nothing. 

[ace56blaa]

yes scotch whiskey this is so important to address right now. fucking hate the tory questions

[Guest]

How many times does Johnson have to say that Starmer doesn't support the measures put in place when all Starmer has done is ask questions about the restrictions ending and economic support. In one question Starmer even said twice he supports those measures.

[mcshed]

34 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

So the test works fine as long as you are testing genuine suspected cases.

Which is what we are currently doing.

[Homer]

Speaker stepped in and reminded Johnson ‘it’s PMQs, not leader of the opposition Qs’

[stuartbert two hats]

20 minutes ago, ace56blaa said:

what? wouldn't it be 0.8 percent of positive cases. Not of tests overall. So it would be 1-2 cases would be false positives. - You can't say 0.8 percent of all tests are false positives, because that's saying that even some of the negative tests are false positives which is obviously ridiculous. - That's what I'd assume though someone smarter could probably elaborate

Why do you think someone is trying to mess with the number and make covid seem more dangerous than it is. Who has anything to game from that.

Especially from a government point of view, the lockdown and measures have bought them nothing but controversy and criticism and lost them the polling lead.

Obviously you could just be saying that the science is wrong and we are testing wrong and we need better tests. But it just seems like you look for stuff to try and discredit covid being taken as a serious threat, when it is a very serious threat. I often think people fall into these patterns of conspiratory thinking about covid, because they just don't want to face reality that their is a virus killing thousands of people and that their complacency and flouting of the rules could lead to more death and infection.

Like seriously, why else would you be posting so much of this kinda stuff here. I don't want to discredit  you entirely cause i see where you're coming from but what is your view on covid, do you think it's being taking too seriously, do you think that we don't need to put in restrictions. ?

I'm going to defend Giz here - the false positive rate is of all tests, not of those that would be positive.  That's why the false positive issue becomes more of a problem with infection levels are low.  When they get higher, then the false positive rate compared to actual infections becomes more insignificant.

[Ryan1984]

Boris seemed to have fire in his belly today and his backbenchers are louder than in weeks?

[ace56blaa]

3 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I'm going to defend Giz here - the false positive rate is of all tests, not of those that would be positive.  That's why the false positive issue becomes more of a problem with infection levels are low.  When they get higher, then the false positive rate compared to actual infections becomes more insignificant.

Okay i take that i'm completely wrong here, I still question why so much of what giz posts is trying to explain away the seriousness of the situation we are in. 

- Also someone just posted the false positive rate is more likely  closer to 0.04 than 0.8 so deffo a smaller issue than being made out. Though I admit I was quick to dismiss it and wrongly label as conspiracy. But I just saw a pattern and have been seeing so much conspiracy recently

[steviewevie]

14 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Starmer asked why Luton is the only place that’s been in local lockdown that’s now had restrictions lifted and Johnson replied saying “The people of Luton pulled together and followed the guidance”

 

Subtle dig at the northerners IMO

he's going to upset that beloved red wall.

[Fuzzy Afro]

7 new deaths in Scotland, most since 17th June 

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Ryan1984 said:

Boris seemed to have fire in his belly today and his backbenchers are louder than in weeks?

He needs to make up for that error he made yesterday.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Ozanne