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What are people thinking about a second lockdown?

Are you worried about a second lockdown?

  • Yes

    Votes: 34 52.3%

  • No

    Votes: 22 33.8%

  • I don't care

    Votes: 9 13.8%
  • Total voters
    65
Educate me - I keep hearing that a positive result is not an infection.

Are those testing positive not infected with covid-19? Even if they are asymptomatic, are they not capable of passing the infection around?
 
lucylocket61 said:
Educate me - I keep hearing that a positive result is not an infection.

Are those testing positive not infected with covid-19! Even if they are asymptomatic, are they not capable of passing the infection around?
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I agree, I thought that was the whole point of track and trace - so the asymptomatic could be informed and self isolate so as not to pass the virus on.
 
zand said:
I agree, I thought that was the whole point of track and trace - so the asymptomatic could be informed and self isolate so as not to pass the virus on.
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Me too, as those with a positive test result have the infection, but can take up to 14 days to show symptoms, during which time they can have passed it on. Like most illnesses.

That's how quarantine used to work before vaccination, as the risk of spread was high even if no symptoms had yet emerged.
 
lucylocket61 said:
Educate me - I keep hearing that a positive result is not an infection.

Are those testing positive not infected with covid-19? Even if they are asymptomatic, are they not capable of passing the infection around?
Click to expand...

Are you really unsure as to what the testing results really are? Before I go into a long and involved explanation?
Have a look at some of the posts on the not doom and gloom thread. Prof Carl Hennegan video especially.
But I guess you are so...

A positive test result does not mean that someone either has COVID let alone is infectious.

Even Matt Hancock admitted that the false positive rate FPR could be 1% which means that of the 233.000 people tested yesterday 2330 could be false positives.. as the total of new "cases" i.e. positive test results yesterday was 4,422 then over half of those could be wrongly classed as "infections".

Add to that the PCR test was not meant to be used to diagnose viral infections and by amplifying the small amount of sample that is taken using a swab you can pick up "positive" results from up to 70 days ago or maybe more) which means that someone could have been exposed not even noticed it and still be shown as "positive" by the test even if their exposure was a month ago.

So when the media report "cases" and "infections" they are really reporting "positive test results" which is why I get so angry at the doom and loom mongers who ignore this rather inconvenient problem with the current reporting.

I hope that helps.
 
I had a sinking feeling that is what you are basing your ideas on.

No further comments from me on this. Sad.
 
As I understand it the PCR test was never meant to be used as a diagnostic as the test can pick up cold cases (someone prevously exposed with dead viral fragments) or weak positives (viral load so low it won't infect anyone else) but this test is being run like a pregnancy test presumably because we the general public cannot be trusted to understand anything too complicated.
if your false positive rate alone is 0.8% as Matt Hancock ('n' Bull) explained on radio recently that means if 100,000 tests are run a day 80 of those would be a false positive and all of those people's contacts would needlessly be told to self isolate etc. Given that we know the virus is not very prevalent in spite of cases spiking with enough time for it to show up in the hospitalisations and deaths rate, that means that a lot of those cases are most likely to be inconsequential both to the individuals concerned and to their contacts.
Whatever we do now the traditional Winter illnesses are bound to crop up and take away the most vulnerable.
In the meantime I have ordered my Anders Tegnell Swedish Superhero tee shirt because they seem to know what they are doing over there and at least they admit where they got it wrong (care home transmissions).
 
Even if testing produced a rate of 5% false positives that would still give an accuracy rate of 95%.
I'm sure that that family members of the 51,000 people who have died, almost certainly as a result of being infected with C19, would not agree that their deaths are just part of a 'gloom and doom' scenario.
 
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I thought it was common knowledge that after a person has been infected and recovered fully, he cannot pass the virus on BUT dead remnants of bits and bobs of it can and do get picked up on tests, and come out positive when that person can no longer infect others. No links I'm afraid, but it has been mentioned lots of times on this forum - and not just by @bulkbiker

As for lockdown, personally I am angry. I am angry, very angry, because despite living in a borough very large by area but not by population (rural) with very low numbers of positive tests, hospitalisation and deaths, one of the lowest in the country in fact, we have been lumped in with the rest of Lancashire and put under restrictions, and can no longer meet with any other household (unless we go to the pub before 10pm!). Blackpool is the only borough in Lancashire that is exempt from these restrictions as things stand. How can that be? It has many more "cases" than us, and is a busy, busy place with tourists. Blackpool Football Club played a home match today with a certain number of spectators allowed. Goodness knows how the combined local authorities came up with this one.
 
bulkbiker said:
A positive test result does not mean that someone either has COVID let alone is infectious
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just for balance a negative test does not mean that someone doesn't have COVID and isn't infectious. Do you know what the false negative rate is? if it is equal to or larger than the false positive your accounting won't stand up.
 
copilost said:
just for balance a negative test does not mean that someone doesn't have COVID and isn't infectious. Do you know what the false negative rate is? if it is equal to or larger than the false positive your accounting won't stand up.
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Indeed although they are less important when you take into account the nature of the PCR test which amplifies fragments of RNA left over from viral infections. The test picks these up in greater and greater quantities depending on the number of times the amplification process is run. If you are found negative then its pretty unlikely that you are showing any traces of RNA from virus so the false negative is a lot less likely.
It certainly can't be equal or greater to the false positive rate.
 
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The consequences of a false positive- minimal. The consequences of acting like a positive is wrong - possibly fatal or life changing illnesses for those infected.

I don't see the problem in acting out of caution just in case.

Unless someone's focus is selfish.
 

When the FPR rate is being used to shut down the entire country once again?
When fewer cycles of replication could be used to get a more probable diagnosis ..
Maybe re-test anyone who tests positive.. ?

There would be many ways to amerliorate the false positives yet we should all lock ourselves away because the government "can't be bothered"

"Acting out of caution" locking down again will likely kill more than COVID assuming it hasn't already.
 
copilost said:
From a very brief internet search this isn't what I'm getting but I'm not an expert.
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There was a nice graphic that I saw earlier on twitter but now I can't find it.. but my point about the PCR test is that it takes microscopic amounts of RNA from the swab which are them amplified multiple times (45 cycles in the UK I believe) producing millions of bits. These are then tested. To get a false negative from that amount of material would be pretty small as they seem to be picking up many different bits of coronavirus (which may or even may not be COVID). That being so a false negative is quite unlikely. You're far more likely to get either a false positive or a positive from someone who has been exposed a while ago and is no longer (or maybe never was) infectious.
 
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