Testing, testing, and more testing: Israel’s plan to reopen schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

NP. Are you really this dense that you can’t see the difference, or are you just trying to play the political card because you can’t argue with the PP’s point? The issue isn’t case counts for optics, it’s kids needlessly missing school due to unnecessary quarantines.

[Anonymous]

I disagree that testing is the answer.

We need to manage a situation where Delta and future variants are transmissible in a couple of unmasked minutes.

So by the time you test, even if you test daily, the entire school can be victim of a superspreading event in the cafeteria, because everyone takes off their mask to eat.

The only solution to these variants is to eat outside. We must invest in tents, fans (summer) and heaters (winter). Any activity that also requires unmasking, like choir, can also be done in that location. If schools absolutely have to open before this can be implemented, we need to open all the windows of rooms where people are unmasked, and put fans to ventilate.

Only then will regular testing and contact tracing be an efficient means of shutting down viral clusters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

If DC accounted for false positives in their protocols, then no problem. But, in a school where you test, say, 1000 kids over the course of a week, TWENTY of those tests may come back with false positives. That means classes for those 20 kids (or more) will be sent home for 2 weeks without recourse. That could be more than half the school.

If the school would accept a second negative PCR test as proof that the kids are negative, we could avoid this. But if they can't manage this much nuance, then testing is more harmful than helpful.

And even that second PCR might be a “false” positive in the sense that the kid may be no longer contagious. Daily antigen teats should follow, and in a contagious kid, those would be positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

If DC accounted for false positives in their protocols, then no problem. But, in a school where you test, say, 1000 kids over the course of a week, TWENTY of those tests may come back with false positives. That means classes for those 20 kids (or more) will be sent home for 2 weeks without recourse. That could be more than half the school.

If the school would accept a second negative PCR test as proof that the kids are negative, we could avoid this. But if they can't manage this much nuance, then testing is more harmful than helpful.

And even that second PCR might be a “false” positive in the sense that the kid may be no longer contagious. Daily antigen teats should follow, and in a contagious kid, those would be positive.

I agree. Antigen tests are the best solution -- and cheap and easy. Lets focus on the kids that are actually contagious and let everyone else learn.

[Anonymous]

If DC was any sort of intelligent about testing, I would be for it. As it is, they aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

Cite your source on these false positives please as I’ve only ever read about false negatives

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

NP. Are you really this dense that you can’t see the difference, or are you just trying to play the political card because you can’t argue with the PP’s point? The issue isn’t case counts for optics, it’s kids needlessly missing school due to unnecessary quarantines.

Nasty and weird, chapeau! I thought the issue was health and safety for kids. Our school is doing weekly pooled testing for cohorts of students/staff. Any cohort that tests positive for COVID-19 will go into a mandatory one-week quarantine where they will receive remote instruction - then during the week of quarantine, cohort students/staff take individual COVID-19 test and present negative results to the school before the end of the week. I think that this makes a lot of sense. We shouldn't be afraid to test. We should plan for the consequences of the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

NP. Are you really this dense that you can’t see the difference, or are you just trying to play the political card because you can’t argue with the PP’s point? The issue isn’t case counts for optics, it’s kids needlessly missing school due to unnecessary quarantines.

Nasty and weird, chapeau! I thought the issue was health and safety for kids. Our school is doing weekly pooled testing for cohorts of students/staff. Any cohort that tests positive for COVID-19 will go into a mandatory one-week quarantine where they will receive remote instruction - then during the week of quarantine, cohort students/staff take individual COVID-19 test and present negative results to the school before the end of the week. I think that this makes a lot of sense. We shouldn't be afraid to test. We should plan for the consequences of the test.

I’m the one who is nasty and weird? You seriously lack self awareness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

Cite your source on these false positives please as I’ve only ever read about false negatives

Again, here's the short answer, although I'm DP:


But there are downsides to systematic testing that have been insufficiently considered, including costs, lost learning time, logistics and stress for those subjected to such a regime. False-positive results — which say you are infected when you aren’t — pose particular problems. Overall, this kind of widespread testing fails cost-benefit analysis: It will drain already insufficient public school resources while doing little to improve safety. And with nearly 80 percent of teachers and school staffers vaccinated with their first dose, the argument for testing grows even weaker.

First, classrooms have thankfully been found — in studies examining schools in multiple states — to be places of limited disease transmission, compared with communities at large. The rate of transmission within schools from individuals who test positive has been estimated to be on the order of 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent (and this includes people exhibiting symptoms).

A rate that low implies that a testing regimen would need to identify roughly 200 infected people to prevent one person from transmitting the disease in school. It would take an awful lot of tests to achieve those numbers. In New York City, where more than 234,000 asymptomatic students and staff members across approximately 1,600 schools were tested last fall, the overall rate of positive tests was only 0.4 percent. That suggests that — even during a time of high community spread — about 40,000 tests among asymptomatic individuals would need to be performed to prevent one in-school transmission.

And how accurate are these tests? Rapid antigen and saliva PCR tests, which are frequently used in schools, can have a false positive rate of 1 or 2 percent. That may sound low, but statisticians know that, when testing in a setting of low prevalence of disease, even a single-digit false-positive rate can be extremely problematic.

The current prevalence rate for the coronavirus in the United States is roughly 15 cases per 10,000 people per week. (Prevalence in schools tends to be similar to, or lower than, that in the surrounding community.) If you give 10,000 people a test that produces false positives 2 percent of the time, that means you might get 215 positives: 15 true positives and 200 false positives. In other words, more than 90 percent of the positive test results will be incorrect.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/19/schools-covid-testing-cost/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

Cite your source on these false positives please as I’ve only ever read about false negatives

Again, here's the short answer, although I'm DP:


But there are downsides to systematic testing that have been insufficiently considered, including costs, lost learning time, logistics and stress for those subjected to such a regime. False-positive results — which say you are infected when you aren’t — pose particular problems. Overall, this kind of widespread testing fails cost-benefit analysis: It will drain already insufficient public school resources while doing little to improve safety. And with nearly 80 percent of teachers and school staffers vaccinated with their first dose, the argument for testing grows even weaker.

First, classrooms have thankfully been found — in studies examining schools in multiple states — to be places of limited disease transmission, compared with communities at large. The rate of transmission within schools from individuals who test positive has been estimated to be on the order of 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent (and this includes people exhibiting symptoms).

A rate that low implies that a testing regimen would need to identify roughly 200 infected people to prevent one person from transmitting the disease in school. It would take an awful lot of tests to achieve those numbers. In New York City, where more than 234,000 asymptomatic students and staff members across approximately 1,600 schools were tested last fall, the overall rate of positive tests was only 0.4 percent. That suggests that — even during a time of high community spread — about 40,000 tests among asymptomatic individuals would need to be performed to prevent one in-school transmission.

And how accurate are these tests? Rapid antigen and saliva PCR tests, which are frequently used in schools, can have a false positive rate of 1 or 2 percent. That may sound low, but statisticians know that, when testing in a setting of low prevalence of disease, even a single-digit false-positive rate can be extremely problematic.

The current prevalence rate for the coronavirus in the United States is roughly 15 cases per 10,000 people per week. (Prevalence in schools tends to be similar to, or lower than, that in the surrounding community.) If you give 10,000 people a test that produces false positives 2 percent of the time, that means you might get 215 positives: 15 true positives and 200 false positives. In other words, more than 90 percent of the positive test results will be incorrect.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/19/schools-covid-testing-cost/

Or, if you feel like Hoeg and Ghandi in the Washington Post is a bad source, here's the American Society for Microbiology:

https://asm.org/Articles/2020/November/SARS-CoV-2-Testing-Sensitivity-Is-Not-the-Whole-St

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I disagree that testing is the answer.

We need to manage a situation where Delta and future variants are transmissible in a couple of unmasked minutes.

So by the time you test, even if you test daily, the entire school can be victim of a superspreading event in the cafeteria, because everyone takes off their mask to eat.

The only solution to these variants is to eat outside. We must invest in tents, fans (summer) and heaters (winter). Any activity that also requires unmasking, like choir, can also be done in that location. If schools absolutely have to open before this can be implemented, we need to open all the windows of rooms where people are unmasked, and put fans to ventilate.

Only then will regular testing and contact tracing be an efficient means of shutting down viral clusters.

Eating outside is a good idea though it should not be a precondition. Why don't you write to your principal and pta? Last year DCPS had funding for tents but few schools requested them. Try to get parents on board and get your school to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

So, when Trump said stop testing so we have fewer cases on the record, we said cult of personality, anti-science, nutter (correctly, in my view), but now parents are saying stop testing so we have fewer cases on record, and we're supposed to say right-o? Crazy.

NP. Are you really this dense that you can’t see the difference, or are you just trying to play the political card because you can’t argue with the PP’s point? The issue isn’t case counts for optics, it’s kids needlessly missing school due to unnecessary quarantines.

Nasty and weird, chapeau! I thought the issue was health and safety for kids. Our school is doing weekly pooled testing for cohorts of students/staff. Any cohort that tests positive for COVID-19 will go into a mandatory one-week quarantine where they will receive remote instruction - then during the week of quarantine, cohort students/staff take individual COVID-19 test and present negative results to the school before the end of the week. I think that this makes a lot of sense. We shouldn't be afraid to test. We should plan for the consequences of the test.

I’m the one who is nasty and weird? You seriously lack self awareness.

Ermmm. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Previous studies on spread in school don't mean anything because the delta variant spreads much more easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Previous studies on spread in school don't mean anything because the delta variant spreads much more easily.

Oh christ the "delta means all research and math no longer works" argument.

Redo the math with delta and show us your results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random testing picks up way too many false positives. Kids would be forced to miss school for no reason.

Cite your source on these false positives please as I’ve only ever read about false negatives

Again, here's the short answer, although I'm DP:


But there are downsides to systematic testing that have been insufficiently considered, including costs, lost learning time, logistics and stress for those subjected to such a regime. False-positive results — which say you are infected when you aren’t — pose particular problems. Overall, this kind of widespread testing fails cost-benefit analysis: It will drain already insufficient public school resources while doing little to improve safety. And with nearly 80 percent of teachers and school staffers vaccinated with their first dose, the argument for testing grows even weaker.

First, classrooms have thankfully been found — in studies examining schools in multiple states — to be places of limited disease transmission, compared with communities at large. The rate of transmission within schools from individuals who test positive has been estimated to be on the order of 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent (and this includes people exhibiting symptoms).

A rate that low implies that a testing regimen would need to identify roughly 200 infected people to prevent one person from transmitting the disease in school. It would take an awful lot of tests to achieve those numbers. In New York City, where more than 234,000 asymptomatic students and staff members across approximately 1,600 schools were tested last fall, the overall rate of positive tests was only 0.4 percent. That suggests that — even during a time of high community spread — about 40,000 tests among asymptomatic individuals would need to be performed to prevent one in-school transmission.

And how accurate are these tests? Rapid antigen and saliva PCR tests, which are frequently used in schools, can have a false positive rate of 1 or 2 percent. That may sound low, but statisticians know that, when testing in a setting of low prevalence of disease, even a single-digit false-positive rate can be extremely problematic.

The current prevalence rate for the coronavirus in the United States is roughly 15 cases per 10,000 people per week. (Prevalence in schools tends to be similar to, or lower than, that in the surrounding community.) If you give 10,000 people a test that produces false positives 2 percent of the time, that means you might get 215 positives: 15 true positives and 200 false positives. In other words, more than 90 percent of the positive test results will be incorrect.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/19/schools-covid-testing-cost/

+1
This makes so much sense. If there's SO little COVID to find, most of your COVID "findings" will be false.