Coronavirus

[Dr Nowt]

4 minutes ago, Stickman said:

Must admit that BBC’ 2 Horizon special on Covid didn’t fill me with a huge amount of optimism for the next few months....Pretty frightening to be honest  as regards a vaccine .

What was their summary? 18 months at best, or even worse?

[Mudface]

Looks like the 'game-changer' ain't, unsurprisingly- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/uk-government-urged-to-abandon-poor-finger-prick-antibody-tests-coronavirus

 

UK government urged to abandon 'poor' finger-prick antibody tests
None of 3.5m home tests ordered have so far been accurate enough to detect coronavirus immunity


Ministers could face a fight to recoup their losses on orders for antibody tests amid calls to abandon pin-prick kits that can be used at home in favour of more reliable lab-based testing.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced in March that 3.5m antibody tests had been bought to help establish who had acquired immunity to the coronavirus – a crucial step in getting people back to work – but later clarified that the orders were subject to the tests being approved.

Rigorous checks on a sample number of the tests have so far found that none meet the standards agreed with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), forcing government to row back on claims that the tests would be ready to send out to the public this month.

But Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said finger-prick antibody tests were rarely reliable and encouraged the government to focus instead on lab-based tests.


“We need a centralised pathology lab antibody test. The government has bought these home tests but they are traditionally very poor in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Expecting those to perform exceptionally well is unlikely in my estimate because they don’t perform particularly well for any virus,” Hibberd said.

“What use is home testing going to be? What are you going to do when someone at home decides they can see a band on a strip and they go out and say I’m free, I can do what I like? I think they should drop it,” he added.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it had bought its current stock of antibody tests on the basis of “minimal initial volumes” but refused to comment on specific commercial arrangements. It said that if the tests did not work, the orders would be cancelled and costs recovered “wherever possible”.

Sir John Bell, a Regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, who is leading the testing effort, said the assessments were ongoing and that his group was talking to companies in the hope of improving the antibody tests, adding that “a lot of the tests look very similar and probably come from the same factory in China”.

The Oxford group has characterised six different antibody tests and found that most fall well short of the accuracy required. Most failed to detect antibodies half the time and the best spotted the immune cells only 70% of the time. If used at scale, the tests could leave millions of people who have immunity convinced they are still vulnerable to the infection. For the test to pass, the accuracy would have to be nearer 95%.

The tests were also found to be unreliable in spotting those who were not immune, with some declaring a blood sample positive for protective antibodies 2% of the time. That false positive is a big risk, because it could mean nurses or carers going back to work believing they are immune when they are not.

The failure of the tests and the complexity of the work to improve them means that a working antibody test could be months away. The tests may be performing badly because they were validated against blood from patients who were severely ill and produced a strong immune response to the virus, unlike most people, who become only mildly ill.

The global rush for antibody tests meant that many governments found themselves in the position where they had to weigh up the risks of buying poor-quality tests and having no tests at all. “The Department of Health and Social Care wanted to get tests quickly and felt it had to commit,” Bell said. “To their credit they put them through rigorous testing.”

“It’s still possible that we won’t get a test … We don’t want to put out a test that is poor. We want a good test that gives us the answers we want,” Bell added.

Without a home-test kit, blood samples can still be checked for antibodies using a lab-based process called an Elisa, which is what Hibberd wants to see adopted. The Elisa test at Oxford can distinguish positive and negative samples of blood with almost 100% accuracy. The downside is that blood needs to be taken from people and sent to the lab for testing.

“This is the sort of testing we need, not these home kits,” Hibberd said. “Will they get their money back on these tests? Who knows. Somebody else will buy them, I’m quite sure.”

[Captain Turdseye]

But we were so well prepared, man. 
 

 

[aRdja]

23 minutes ago, Moo said:

You can't rely on other people all of the time.  What if it was his only trip there in 2/3/4 weeks, while neighbours have just been picking up bits and bobs in between?  Neighbours etc will be buying for themselves too and possibly other relatives so will want to limit their trips out and interactions. 

If you're genuinely enabling a vulnerable person to eat, or have access to medication, it's an essential journey no matter how far. 

Agreed. I still think he should resign though. Not a great optic, especially after telling the plebs fo stay in himself.

[Jennings]

Fuck me. That's damning.

[Bjornebye]

Cunt of a story. At no point do they falsely accuse him of being anti-semitic. Disgraceful. 

[Guest Pistonbroke]

4 minutes ago, Mudface said:

Looks like the 'game-changer' ain't, unsurprisingly- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/uk-government-urged-to-abandon-poor-finger-prick-antibody-tests-coronavirus

 

 

 

Just more incompetence from a Gov't that is hell bent on trying to do things their way without heeding the advice of others. 

[Pureblood]

18 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

But we were so well prepared, man. 
 

 

This is why I refuse to join in the clapping.  These pricks have sold us down the river.  The clapping gives a false feel good vibe as to how matters are proceeding which is at odds with reality. 

[Strontium]

15 minutes ago, Mudface said:

Why?

 

Some Stasi wannabe has grassed him up for delivering food and medicine to his parents. What the hell is wrong with people.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Yeah, they should all be embarrassed. 

[Mudface]

5 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Some Stasi wannabe has grassed him up for delivering food and medicine to his parents. What the hell is wrong with people.

So the person reporting it is a disgrace, not the 'paper reporting the story?

[Dr Nowt]

Finger-prick home use kits aren’t as reliable as rigorous lab-based testing?

 

The revelations are coming thick and fast for our health secretary.

 

* does hollow laugh with no joy in it 

[Pureblood]

6 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Some Stasi wannabe has grassed him up for delivering food and medicine to his parents. What the hell is wrong with people.

Wouldn't have been a problem if he was Hollow Man.  Always do what Kevin Bacon would have done. 

[Strontium]

6 minutes ago, Mudface said:

So the person reporting it is a disgrace, not the 'paper reporting the story?

 

Are they not the ones who printed it, despite knowing that he wasn't doing anything wrong?

[Champ]

It’s my neighbour’s funeral next week. I spoke to his wife this evening. There’ll be her and their daughter there. He was an odd bloke but that was just awful to hear that they will be there on their own without anyone to show their solidarity or to comfort them

[Pureblood]

2 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Are they not the ones who printed it, despite knowing that he wasn't doing anything wrong?

Obvious troll is way too obvious. 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

I think that the thing getting lost in this Jenrick story is that he claims that he was just taking them food and medication. 

 

That doesn't automatically mean that that's a true account of what happened. 

[Mudface]

Just now, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Are they not the ones who printed it, despite knowing that he wasn't doing anything wrong?

If it wasn't an essential journey, then he most certainly was in the wrong.

[Stickman]

14 minutes ago, Lizzie Birdsworths Wrinkled Chopper said:

What was their summary? 18 months at best, or even worse?

Could be lot longer than 18 months especially when they said after 40 years they still haven’t got a vaccine for HIV and the fastest ever produced is 5 years which was for Ebola.

Well worth watching and easily the best programme I’ve seen on it.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Zee Germans have just donated 60 ventilators to the wonderfully, well prepared Brits. 

[Mudface]

5 minutes ago, Champ said:

It’s my neighbour’s funeral next week. I spoke to his wife this evening. There’ll be her and their daughter there. He was an odd bloke but that was just awful to hear that they will be there on their own without anyone to show their solidarity or to comfort them

Damn. It's just heart-breakingly cruel.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

Hopefully the police start nicking people and the cunts will think twice. 

I'm not sure where I saw it but there was a story of a clown driving from Bolton to somewhere like The Lake District or The Outer Hebredees (if that's not made up) in a convertible car, with the soft top down. The driver had a couple of other people in it, thankfully who turned out to be from the same household. The police pulled them over on the motorway and he simply said "It's too sunny to stay in Bolton." The driver was escorted back to their house.

[Mudface]

1 minute ago, Nelly-Torres said:

Zee Germans have just donated 60 ventilators to the wonderfully, well prepared Brits. 

It's alright, we'll be getting loads of superior Dyson ones soon. Any minute now. Just as soon as his Malaysian plants get sorted so he can skim on production costs.

[Mudface]

1 minute ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

I'm not sure where I saw it but there was a story of a clown driving from Bolton to somewhere like The Lake District or The Outer Hebredees (if that's not made up) in a convertible car, with the soft top down. The driver had a couple of other people in it, thankfully who turned out to be from the same household. The police pulled them over on the motorway and he simply said "It's too sunny to stay in Bolton." The driver was escorted back to their house.

To be fair, getting out of Bolton is a far better excuse than dropping food off to your relatives.

[Dougie Do'ins]

38 minutes ago, Stickman said:

Must admit that BBC’ 2 Horizon special on Covid didn’t fill me with a huge amount of optimism for the next few months....Pretty frightening to be honest  as regards a vaccine .

I watched the Horizon programme that was on BBC4 last night and then watched tonight's straight after. 

 

Unless someone has a huge stroke of luck in a laboratory this is not going away anytime soon, if at all.