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

[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.

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:

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.

Also, remember: If no studies apply, then YOU have no studies to support any of your projections or ideas.

[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.

No. Things have changed with vaccinations. Out communities, including the most vulnerable people in them, are less at risk due to widespread vaccination. In the early part of the pandemic, it made more sense to err on the side of caution. Now, more than 18 months in with vaccinations available to almost everyone 12 and over, it makes sense to shift to an approach that focuses on limiting transmission, but in which the cost of never-ending quarantines are considered. I like the Israeli approach and don't understand why the US continues to ignore testing as a way to limit spread. The Israeli approach gives families incentives to test, which is the best way to do it. If entire families don't have to isolate due to a positive test (assuming that adults and older children are vaccinated), the social cost, especially for the most vulnerable, is much less than in the early days of the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Also, remember: If no studies apply, then YOU have no studies to support any of your projections or ideas.

I'm not trying to argue the case either way. I'm just saying that people can't rely on these past studies in their arguments because the math is different with a virus that spreads much more easily. Go ahead and make other good arguments, but I don't think you can honestly quote pre-delta studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, remember: If no studies apply, then YOU have no studies to support any of your projections or ideas.

I'm not trying to argue the case either way. I'm just saying that people can't rely on these past studies in their arguments because the math is different with a virus that spreads much more easily. Go ahead and make other good arguments, but I don't think you can honestly quote pre-delta studies.

Sigh. Did you even bother looking at the study so see why it doesn't matter if it is pre- or post-delta? You are talking out of your butthole.

[Anonymous]

This insistence on not actually trying to engage with the research is really quite striking.

No studies apply, nothing can be learned. It must be a terrifying way to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This insistence on not actually trying to engage with the research is really quite striking.

No studies apply, nothing can be learned. It must be a terrifying way to live.

It's very Trumpian.

[Anonymous]

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

I agree with this. Last year, our entire school was out because of false positives. Staff members tested positive (with no visible symptoms) and then had negative PCR tests two days later. They were able to return to school, but the rest of the school was out for a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Random surveillance testing is the best approach. Like NYC.

That is the worst approach actually. Tests show positive up to three months after having Covid and you’re only contagious for 10 days max. You are more likely to capture non-contagious people by random surveillance testing, resulting in unneeded quarantines. Either regular (2x/wk or more for all) or no testing needs to be the way.

[Anonymous]

They need to do very regular Antigen-only testing, and then daily testing for anyone who tests positive. If you want to test, this is the way to do it.

[Anonymous]

This insistence on not actually trying to engage with the research is really quite striking.

No studies apply, nothing can be learned. It must be a terrifying way to live.


It's very Trumpian.

Huh? Of course I think studies apply! And I think studies based on obsolete conditions *don't apply* - at least without some re-analysis. What's Trumpian is to ignore that aspect of the research.

As for talking out of my butthole - which I'm prone to do - I haven't seen a study about whether delta makes a difference in spread in schools. Sorry if I missed it above. Please reply with the link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Also, remember: If no studies apply, then YOU have no studies to support any of your projections or ideas.

I'm not trying to argue the case either way. I'm just saying that people can't rely on these past studies in their arguments because the math is different with a virus that spreads much more easily. Go ahead and make other good arguments, but I don't think you can honestly quote pre-delta studies.

Sigh. Did you even bother looking at the study so see why it doesn't matter if it is pre- or post-delta? You are talking out of your butthole.

Right? Delta changes nothing about the false positivity rate in cases of low community incidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Also, remember: If no studies apply, then YOU have no studies to support any of your projections or ideas.

I'm not trying to argue the case either way. I'm just saying that people can't rely on these past studies in their arguments because the math is different with a virus that spreads much more easily. Go ahead and make other good arguments, but I don't think you can honestly quote pre-delta studies.

Sigh. Did you even bother looking at the study so see why it doesn't matter if it is pre- or post-delta? You are talking out of your butthole.

Right? Delta changes nothing about the false positivity rate in cases of low community incidence.

The other poster is not going to attempt to understand that, so why bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This insistence on not actually trying to engage with the research is really quite striking.

No studies apply, nothing can be learned. It must be a terrifying way to live.


It's very Trumpian.

Huh? Of course I think studies apply! And I think studies based on obsolete conditions *don't apply* - at least without some re-analysis. What's Trumpian is to ignore that aspect of the research.

As for talking out of my butthole - which I'm prone to do - I haven't seen a study about whether delta makes a difference in spread in schools. Sorry if I missed it above. Please reply with the link.

You didn't read the ASM study, did you.

[Anonymous]

Right? Delta changes nothing about the false positivity rate in cases of low community incidence.

I wasn't saying delta affects the false positive rate. I was responding to previous posts that cited pre-delta studies of spread in schools to argue against testing.