@realcaseyrollins

For the moment it only provides data, it doesn't draw a conclusion. However over time as we acquire more data it will certainly help draw conclusions. If we do some of the things mentioned above than the data from that study, when used with other data of the nature I mentioned, can eventually be used to determine the actual percentage of people infected. But so far we dont have the data to do that.

@obi

@realcaseyrollins

Data and studies aside if we just look at the high profile people being infected and dieing or otherwise having severe complications should tell you something.

Actor Nick Cordero just had his leg amputated due to getting COVID-19, when the last time you heard of any celebrity getting a leg amputated due to the flu? Or all the high profile people who have died from COVID-19, again, when was the last time you heard of any famous person even dying of the flu?

Any studies or numbers aside its pretty clear even if this is over or under hyped, its a pretty serious disease.

@obi

@freemo Truthfully i don't know of anyone famous who has had it bad. Never heard of this guy you referenced lol @realcaseyrollins

@obi

Thankfully they havent been huge actors, but famous enough I suppose:

https://www.syracuse.com/celebrity-news/2020/04/celebrity-deaths-from-coronavirus-stars-who-died-of-covid-19-updated-list.html

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo @obi It just doesn't makes to me that the conclusion of a study saying that there are more infections than previously thought should not be that there are more infections than previously thought.

There's nothing about a False Positive Paradox that invalidates that conclusion.

@realcaseyrollins

Well that wasnt really the conclusion in the first place.. thought by whom?

All the experts up until then and still now at the moment would say the same thing.. we dont know the number infected very well.

@obi

@freemo

You said "it was as serious as they said", but when @obi pointed out that the study shows that more infections means a lower death rate (meaning it's actually less serious than they said), you claim that the False Positive Paradox invalidates that conclusion. I would just like to know why.

@realcaseyrollins

The link i provided explained why the False Positive Paradox means that we cant draw conclusions from the test results without other types of data needed to calculate the true-positive rate.

We would need to first know the actual incidence of the virus in the population along with the false-positive rate of the test, with those two pieces of data then we can conclude meaningful results from the test.

Basically your working backwards, your trying to use a test to determine incident rate when you need to know the incident rate first in order to interprit the results of the test. which is exactly why we need other types of data which we dont have before this particular data comes useful.

@obi

@freemo @obi I thought you have to have had the #Coronavirus before you can get the antibodies. Would that count as an "incident"? Perhaps some of these people are naturally immune and were born with antibodies.

@realcaseyrollins

False positives happen for numerous reasons. technical inaccuracies of a test (such as detecting antibodies from another source or similar) can be one, but it can also include things as simple as human error, cross contamination, and countless other reasons.

The reason it is called the false positive paradox is exactly because of the reaction you are exhibiting now.. it is counter intuitive to what your instinct tells you when interpreting such a test.

I usually find when dealing with counter intuitive logic it can be helpful to think about it in the most extream case to help you see why it is the way it is... imagine some imaginary disease that is very rare, no one knows how rare it is though (just as we have no clue with coronavirus how common it really is).. so we develop some test to test for the disease so we can figure out how common it is.

Now lets say, for simplicity, we know due to human error or whatever other error inherent int he testing process that 1% of the time the test will say someone has the disease when they really do not (false positive). Lets also assume that in reality (though unknown to the scientists) only one person in the entire world actually has the disease, or for simplicity sake, no one does.

So armed with our 99% certain test we test the entire population of the world in an effort to determine how wide spread the disease is. What result would we get?

Well according to our 99% reliable rest 78 million people in the world have the disease (we tested 7.8 billion and 1% of them got a false positive).. Since we dont know the actual number of people in the world who had the disease, or even the the false positive rate of the test going in, we will happily conclude the disease has reached 78 million people even though in reality the disease is non-existant.

In other words.. the test is only actually helpful to us if we know the incident rate in the population and the false-positive rate of the test.. without these additional data points the test doesnt tell us anything of value.

@obi

@freemo @obi If this is the case, should we even be reading these kinds of studies?

@realcaseyrollins

Depends.. it has long been the case that laypeople reading studies, or even news media outlets reporting on them, have done more harm than good. Its pretty common for the media and laypeople to draw incorrect conclusions that professionals might know better not to do.

The study **is** valuable, it just doesnt draw any conclusions on its own and will simply be part of a bigger puzzle as time goes on. But the lay person is likely to draw premature conclusions from it anyway.

Among scientists its a huge gripe about how people and the news tend to report on studies. Its almost always wrong.

@obi

@freemo @obi I feel that the study means what it says, but I respect your opinion if you disagree or distrust its numbers.

@realcaseyrollins

The study **does** mean what it says, it just doesnt mean what **you** say it means.. the fault isnt in the study or its claims, its in your interpretation of it.

@obi

@freemo @obi I mean, if scientists say "more people had #Coronavirus than we thought", I'm inclined to believe them, personally. But again, I respect your opinion.

@realcaseyrollins

The study does not say that, only the news which reported on it did.. so no "scientists" are saying that, its not even a scientific statement (how do they measure the percentage people "thought" had it, and are you talking about people who had coronavirus or people who had COVID-19)...

I think what your really trying to say, but lack the scientific verbage to express it is... coronavirus doesnt always manifest as COVID-19, it has a high incidence of asymptomatic carriers... which is entiery true (and what a lot of scientists would agree with including the ones who did that study). but you have to understand in technical language your saying something very different than "COVID-19 isnt very deadly".. both because coronavirus doesnt always cause COVID-19 because it means something slightly different, and also because of reinfections.

Also its a lot easier to know that asymptomatic carriers are high than it is to actually claim 5% of the population had the virus... so your kinda getting yourself stuck in the weeds in multiple ways here.

@obi

@freemo @obi "USC and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Monday released preliminary results from a collaborative scientific study that suggests infections from the new coronavirus are far more widespread — and the fatality rate much lower — in L.A. County than previously thought...The antibody test is helpful for identifying past infection, but a PCR test is required to diagnose a current infection."

I see no reason to disagree with this, nor any evidence that this is false.

@realcaseyrollins

Those arent words spoken by a scientist.. your welcome to beleive it or not, but do **not** try to claim this is something the study or scientists said. It is a layperson's interpritation of it, and not really a technical statement.

notice the words "preliminary" and "suggests" as well, also notice they dont even say who "previously thought" it.. are they talking about popular opinion? Its not a very technical statement but if they are just saying that a bunch of americans sitting home drinking beer thought the virus wasnt as wide spread as it is and this study is evidence they are wrong.. well sure thats fine.. but its not really a surprise to scientists who havent really made much of an assertion either way how wide spread it is, most admit we dont have the data to say that yet.

@obi

@freemo @obi Yeah my bad. While they're from a scientific study, I suppose they're not scientists. It also should be considered that this hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. (IIRC there's a similar study saying the same thing that also needs to be peer reviewed.)

I would assume that the people who "previously thought" the numbers were lower were the people who provided the numbers to the government officials, who then announced them. IDK about the people who provided the data, but if the California government officials truly were sitting at home drinking beer, it would certainly explain a lot. 😉

@freemo I agree with your point of view on this up until "they aren't a scientist". We should never make an argument from a position of authority, let the argument speak for itself (not that this applies here). Just because someone is a scientist, it does not make them correct. @realcaseyrollins

@freemo I.e Noam Chomsky, one of the most respected Cognitive scientists and liberals (I've always loved his logic), came out recently endorsing Biden, someone who is obviously in cognitive decline, and said if u don't vote Biden its a vote for Trump....grrrrr

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo
Another example. Years ago Brian Cox was my hero. I even got my emailed questions read on the podcast a few times. I looked up to him in the way he approached science. Then someone asked him on an episode his thoughts about there potentially being a Planet X in our solar system on thousands of years orbit, and provided some interesting data. He mocked the question, and said "no no no there is no planet X or Niburu or any crazy thing like that. 0 chance of that". A few months later some new data came out of NASA(?) Showing some interesting things that might support that. He acknowledged the data and possibility, but didn't apologize at his mockery of a fan asking that question so recently. That's when I lost respect for him. It makes me sad.

@realcaseyrollins

@realcaseyrollins

Everything aside there is another thing important to note..

The percentage of people who die from this strain of Coronavirus is a very different thing than the percentage of people who die from COVID-19. This is especially important when we realize reinfection is a very real possibility right now.

@obi