BMJ view of Liverpool mass testing

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by Tyketical Masterstroke, Nov 16, 2020.

  1. Tyk

    Tyketical Masterstroke Well-Known Member

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  2. dreamboy3000

    dreamboy3000 Well-Known Member

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  3. Che

    Chef Tyke Well-Known Member

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    It’s nuts isn’t it

    it’s of very little practical use, if any at all.
     
  4. Tyk

    Tyketical Masterstroke Well-Known Member

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    Id love to see a cost versus benefits analysis.
     
  5. pompey_red

    pompey_red Well-Known Member

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    I don’t think you need to.

    “Spending the equivalent of 77% of the NHS annual revenue budget on an unevaluated underdesigned national programme leading to a regressive, insufficiently supported intervention—in many cases for the wrong people—cannot be defended”
     
  6. man

    mansfield_red Well-Known Member

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    "The false positive rate of 0.6% means that at the current prevalence in Liverpool, for every person found truly positive, at least one other may be wrongly required to self-isolate. As prevalence drops, this will become much worse."

    I pointed this out on here the other week. Just because a test is is 99% accurate doesn't mean a positive result is 99% likely to be correct.
     
  7. DEETEE

    DEETEE Well-Known Member

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    Given they havent done any for the lockdowns or the tier system youd be pleased to know not one bit has been done on the mass testing.
     
  8. Jay

    Jay Well-Known Member

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    There's lots of explanations of this on the web, but this a very good one.



    But don't hold your breath
     
    Old Goat likes this.
  9. dreamboy3000

    dreamboy3000 Well-Known Member

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  10. man

    mansfield_red Well-Known Member

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    Aye, I was told I was "so wrong"
     
  11. Jay

    Jay Well-Known Member

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    And to feed the figures of the current pandemic into this:

    Let's say the Covid test has a specificity of 95% and a sensitivity of 95%. It's not that good, but let's go with it. I'll round up the UK population to 70 million and we'll say 1 million of those have Covid-19 right now. We test everyone.

    69,000,000 healthy people are tested. 3.45 million (5%) return a false positive.
    1,000,000 Covid-19 infected people are tested. 950,000 (95%) return a true positive.

    What are the chances you have the disease if you test positive? 950,000 / 3,450,000 = 0.275 or 28% - Just over 1 in 4. Three quarters of people who test positive don't have it.

    But it's like hammering a nail into a knot.
     

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