[OutsiderFan]

My Nurse friend's long term care facility was ordered to test all patients for Covid-19 this week. They usually have about 120 residents.  Here's what his wife told me today:

Holy sh*t! 1/3 rd of his building tested positive and he said there is no rhyme or reason to the results. People who show no symptoms are positive and people you think are presenting are coming back negative. He thinks the tests are very faulty with a lot of false positives and false negatives.

He said one person went to the hospital for a fracture, came back positive, tested positive the following week, the 3rd week tested negative.  Now tested positive again.

And his Assistant Director of Nursing has family in Italy and says they are still in lockdown after 3 months and still tons of people dying.

If people are getting tested multiple times and showing different results, I don't know how pro or college sports are gonna work.

[OutsiderFan]

My Nurse friend's long term care facility was ordered to test all patients for Covid-19 this week. They usually have about 120 residents.  Here's what his wife told me today:

Holy sh*t! 1/3 rd of his building tested positive and he said there is no rhyme or reason to the results. People who show no symptoms are positive and people you think are presenting are coming back negative. He thinks the tests are very faulty with a lot of false positives and false negatives.

He said one person went to the hospital for a fracture, came back positive, tested positive the following week, the 3rd week tested negative.  Now tested positive again.

And his Assistant Director of Nursing has family in Italy and says they are still in lockdown after 3 months and still tons of people dying.

If people are getting tested multiple times and showing different results, I don't know how pro or college sports are gonna work.

[M T]

My Nurse friend's long term care facility was ordered to test all patients for Covid-19 this week. They usually have about 120 residents.  Here's what his wife told me today:

If people are getting tested multiple times and showing different results, I don't know how pro or college sports are gonna work.

It would be good to find out the kind of tests and the experience of the sample takers.   One of the papers I read argued that most false negatives on PCR tests are a result of bad technique of taking the sample, based on little DNA in the sample (suggesting that it would have also missed the virus RNA).

As I've said before, one of the problems that China had was when they first came up with the tests.  They only got positive results on about 3/4 of the existing patients, and then reported no new positives for 8 days or so.  This could be consistent with poor techniques of sampling, or bad reagents or lab techniques.  But I'm no health care worker and don't know if that is reasonable or not.

[M T]

My Nurse friend's long term care facility was ordered to test all patients for Covid-19 this week. They usually have about 120 residents.  Here's what his wife told me today:

If people are getting tested multiple times and showing different results, I don't know how pro or college sports are gonna work.

It would be good to find out the kind of tests and the experience of the sample takers.   One of the papers I read argued that most false negatives on PCR tests are a result of bad technique of taking the sample, based on little DNA in the sample (suggesting that it would have also missed the virus RNA).

As I've said before, one of the problems that China had was when they first came up with the tests.  They only got positive results on about 3/4 of the existing patients, and then reported no new positives for 8 days or so.  This could be consistent with poor techniques of sampling, or bad reagents or lab techniques.  But I'm no health care worker and don't know if that is reasonable or not.

[OutsiderFan]

I do know both nostrils had to be swabbed for this particular testing I referenced. Beyond that, I dunno who did the testing, if it was a state lab or Quest or some other private company that ran them.

This data does seem to raise an issue about testing in the sports context. If a guy on a team tests positive, and then the rest of the team is tested and negative on Day 1, some guys might test positive on Day 2, after practicing or playing a game that will have led to transmission to teammates or opponents. 

My assumption at the moment is sports will start up in August and be forced to shut down in September. This is why it behooves the NBA, NHL And MLS to find a way to quickly have their post season in July/August. I believe MLB, NFL, NCAA, and college campuses are gonna have the worst time of it.

This is based on the notion we shut things down for two+ months, so in two+ months all the time we bought will be up and the next wave will be worse because the virus is already seeded everywhere, when this was not the case when the outbreak and shutdowns started.

[OutsiderFan]

I do know both nostrils had to be swabbed for this particular testing I referenced. Beyond that, I dunno who did the testing, if it was a state lab or Quest or some other private company that ran them.

This data does seem to raise an issue about testing in the sports context. If a guy on a team tests positive, and then the rest of the team is tested and negative on Day 1, some guys might test positive on Day 2, after practicing or playing a game that will have led to transmission to teammates or opponents. 

My assumption at the moment is sports will start up in August and be forced to shut down in September. This is why it behooves the NBA, NHL And MLS to find a way to quickly have their post season in July/August. I believe MLB, NFL, NCAA, and college campuses are gonna have the worst time of it.

This is based on the notion we shut things down for two+ months, so in two+ months all the time we bought will be up and the next wave will be worse because the virus is already seeded everywhere, when this was not the case when the outbreak and shutdowns started.