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[Hurdity]

There has been some confusion about coronavirus, coronaviruses and Covid-19 on the main thread in This and That so I thought I would try to clarify here as far as I understand and have been able to glean from reading. I'm posting it here so it doesn't get lost, as there is understandably a lot of varied chat about the whole situation on multiple threads in that section.

On the scientific/medical thread in this section I linked to a really helpful website which explained all of this, so do have a look at this.

https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en/

I will quote relevant extracts in the next post on this thread.

What is coronavirus and what is Covid-19

In a nutshell ? this virus is called ?Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (or SARS-CoV-2 for short) to distinguish it from the first SARS virus.

The illness it causes has been named Covid-19 . However both the illness and the virus are widely referred to by the general public, politicians, organisations and in the media as ?Coronavirus?.

All the data, stats, tests and everything that is being talked about at the moment refers to the current outbreak of Covid-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.   When they say "coronavirus" they all mean either the specific virus SAR-CoV-2 or Covid-19 or both.  None of the discussion in the media, Public Health England, NHS, Dept of Health nor reports of illnesses, tests or cases refer to the coronaviruses that cause colds ? except when the discussion is for example about the biological properties of coronaviruses as a group and then it is obvious from the context.

What are the tests and what do the daily data show?

There are two types of tests ? the first tests people who have got the virus. This is the one where swabs are taken from the nose and throat. All the daily data (and cumulative totals) of numbers of cases are as a result of this test and currently is biased towards hospital admissions although is now (slowly) moving to test NHS frontline staff. The data may underestimate the actual number of cases by a factor of 10 due to the very low numbers of tests being undertaken. Most who are self-isolating with Covid-19 symptoms do not know whether or not they have the disease, but if it's in the last 4 weeks and especially eg in a hot-spot eg London, Hampshire, the Midlands etc ? then it is likely.

The second test is the antibody test which tests if someone has had the disease but will not show up until some days after infection - this is the immune response. This test would be really usefully so that people who have had the disease (even if mildly) would know and also epidemiologists can track the spread and incidence of the disease. As far as I understand it there are tests but not specific to SARS-CoV-2 as yet widely available.

It is the antibody test that was widely publicised a week or so ago - that Government had bought 3.5 million tests and these could be done at home ? though not sure whether this option would be available to the general public?  These tests are now being validated to see how accurate and reliable they are ? so this needs large numbers of people who have been known to have had the disease, to be tested for antibodies through these new rapid tests. If they turn out to be accurate then they will be rolled out (although not sure quite how?)

Brief explanation of the two tests here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51943612

I hope this is helpful and will clear up some of the conufsion and please put me right if I've got anything wrong!

Hurdity x

[Hurdity]

Here is the information quoted directly from the website I have linked to giving the information and explanation - but I thought I would do it in my own words in the first post so as not to mix up with quoted info!

Further information from the website I linked to:
https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en/section/vaccination-diagnosis-treatment/

What are coronaviruses?

https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en/article/cad0003/

?Coronaviruses (CoVs) are a family of viruses that cause respiratory and intestinal illnesses in humans and animals.1 Coronaviruses usually cause mild colds in people but the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China in 2002?2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012 show they can also cause severe disease.
Since December 2019, the world has been battling another coronavirus. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus responsible for the current pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was first identified in Wuhan, China, following reports of serious pneumonia?

Testing for the new coronavirus

https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en/article/vdt0003/

?There are two types of test for COVID-19. One detects the genetic code of the virus and is used to diagnose current infection. The other detects antibodies to the virus and is necessary to pick up past infection.?

?Detecting the genetic code of the virus
This type of test uses swabs from the nose and throat. These tests are the best way to check whether someone's symptoms are due to COVID-19 or caused by something else. They are used in health services to diagnose current infection.

They are rapid (about 6 hours), sensitive and specific but samples need to be sent away to specialist laboratories, delaying results.?

"Detecting an immune response to the virus
Antibodies are produced about 5?7 days after a coronavirus infection as part of the immune response.
If a person has antibodies, it might be because of a recent and active infection, or because they had SARS-CoV-2 infection in the past, which in many cases may have been asymptomatic. If a sick patient is tested before they have developed antibodies, they will test negative, despite having an active infection.?

Hurdity x

[CLKD]

Apparently because some of the tests haven't been approved; even though the Government has paid a lot of money for them; they can't be used ....... and will not initially be available for use at home - according to the afternoon update.  So those health workers that may be un-infected  have to find their way to somewhere that will test them then have to wait for the results.  Which could put more people at risk? 

[Mogster71]

Hello Hurdity

Thank you very much for posting this - even though I sit and watch the news on a daily basis, I wasn't sure on the testing side of things. This is really useful and helps me to understand.

I hope you are keeping safe and well x

[Sparrow]

What would happen if they gave everyone a test next week and half the population were found to have had it already?

Much easier to manage if the majority are just kept in the dark.

My thoughts exactly.  I'm beginning to think we have been manipulated by fear and blinded by science.

[Kathleen]

Hello ladies.

Any mass testing would have been a good idea. Germany invested in testing and their death rate is much lower than ours.

As we know if you have antibodies to COVID 19 you have had the virus and are now immune. However  I read somewhere that it takes three tests to be sure and no one knows if immunity is guaranteed.

So much is unknown about this virus unfortunately but we are learning fast.

Wishing everyone well.

K.

[Hurdity]

Hi Kathleen

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this statement "Germany invested in testing and their death rate is much lower than ours." and whether you meant that the second statement was a consequence of the first?

However it is not so much that they are testing more people which leads to a lower death rate, but that precisely because they are testing more, they are getting closer to the actual death rate as opposed to the apparent death rate which is a total artefact. The more people you test, the lower the reported death rate ( numbers of deaths as a proportion of numbers infected) will be, hence Germany's lower death rate. In terms of actual numbers of deaths following the 50th death , implementation of control measures at an earlier stage resulted in lower numbers of deaths at the equivalent point on the timescale. This is different from the (apparent) death rate.

The vast majority of our Covid-19 cases in UK are going untested and unconfirmed although a few may be reported to NHS-111 as probable only if people use this online service when they get symptoms. (I encouraged my two children in London who got it to report theirs for this reason). Most of the tests in UK are from hospital admissions and some others, although the numbers are set to increase. These patients are the sickest and so of course the death rate seems incredibly high.

Only when there is an 100% (99% ??) accurate antibody test will we know the likely incidence in the population including those who were asymptomatic and those many like my children who had it for a week and then got better on their own.

The irony of increased testing is that the very figure the Government are partly looking at to see if social distancing measures are working ( ie a flattening of the curve showing numbers of daily positive confirmed cases), will increase as a result of increased testing as more cases in the community are picked up. That's how I see it anyway. So again the figures will not be comparable and will be an artefact relating to who is tested.

I totally agree Kathleen. A combination of early measures, including mass testing, isolation, rigorous contact tracing, as well as social distancing, could have resulted in a very different outcome .

Hurdity x

[CLKD]

Latest from the government:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called for an urgent review into how coronavirus deaths have been recorded in England.

It follows confirmation from Public Health England that reported deaths may have included people who tested positive months before they died.

Other UK nations only include those who die within 28 days of a positive test.

Officials say the publication of daily death figures will be paused while the issue was "resolved".

A note on the government's website read: "Currently the daily deaths measure counts all people who have tested positive for coronavirus and since died, with no cut-off between time of testing and date of death.

"There have been claims that the lack of cut-off may distort the current daily deaths number."

I would like these figures to include those whose life-saving treatments were stopped as well as those who couldn't get an initial appt. to find out whether they had cancer .............  : there are going to be a lot of deaths that never get recorded against this Virus and a lot that were when the patient wasn't affected.