Michael McNamara TD getting to the truth, Cases, PCR testing flaws.

drunkmonkey · 29-09-2020 7:37pm #1

There you have it folks CCO of the HSE admits PCR testing picking up covid weeks after infection...these are recorded as positive covid results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_cl63FgAhQ

How cases are recorded is also questionable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZolPvWW8oo

Will the general public ever understand what the daily cases actually mean rather then just getting frightened by them, we really need the Media to start getting at the truth of what's happening.

Mix all the above in with the false positive rates and they're little justification for how the Government are behaving.

3xh · 29-09-2020 7:41pm

Great to see. Michael McNamara TD has been only one of a very few TDs willing to question the figures coming out from Government and NPHET.

Hopefully this doesn’t fizzle out. If NPHET and their numbers are all above board, they’ll have nothing to hide nor worry about, as they say.

drunkmonkey · 29-09-2020 7:45pm

The numbers are real but the public don't understand them.
PCR testing here is the same as the UK and shows a positive covid result up to 78 days.
They have everything to worry about....

normanoffside · 29-09-2020 7:56pm

The Department of Health always report that x number of people with Covid have died.
It's the mainstream media who misreport this and say that x number have people have died from Covid.

Case in point from today

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1310987729291882496

normanoffside · 29-09-2020 7:56pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

The numbers are real but the media misreport them
.

FYP

3xh · 29-09-2020 8:05pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

The numbers are real but the public don't understand them.
PCR testing here is the same as the UK and shows a positive covid result up to 78 days.
They have everything to worry about....

Sorry, yep. My post gives the impression I thought the numbers were being massaged. I don’t think that.

The numbers are real, it’s the test used and how it picks up expired virus debris that is the story to come once the media choose to start highlighting it and telling people the case numbers aren’t actually that bad.

Plus, how a broken leg patient with Covid in hospital is included in the hospitalisation figures and portrayed as being in hospital because of Covid primarily. It should be clarified to the media each day the difference between that and a patient primarily admitted due to Covid and reported accordingly in the daily print runs/news programming.

normanoffside · 29-09-2020 8:10pm

3xh wrote: »

Sorry, yep. My post gives the impression I thought the numbers were being massaged. I don’t think that.

The numbers are real, it’s the test used and how it picks up expired virus debris that is the story to come once the media choose to start highlighting it and telling people the case numbers aren’t actually that bad.

Plus, how a broken leg patient with Covid in hospital is included in the hospitalisation figures and portrayed as being in hospital because of Covid primarily. It should be clarified to the media each day the difference between that and a patient primarily admitted due to Covid and reported accordingly in the daily print runs/news programming.

This is the thing.
The more people have Covid in Society then naturally the more people will be hospitalised with Covid (But not necessarily because of it).
The more people will die with Covid (but not necessarily because of it).

I do think we deserve those numbers but the media do nothing to ask for them and in fact misreport all the death statistics to suit what seems to be their own agenda of doom and gloom.

What we are missing is a critical and investigative media.

prunudo · 29-09-2020 8:18pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

The numbers are real but the public don't understand them.
PCR testing here is the same as the UK and shows a positive covid result up to 78 days.
They have everything to worry about....

78 days, is that for real, on every test or just possible on some tests given certain circumstances.

niallo27 · 29-09-2020 8:18pm

I didn't know about the 78 day thing, it does mean the chances of a positive case today being symptomatic is much lower than we actually thought.

dalyboy · 29-09-2020 8:32pm

This 78 day inaccuracy is exactly why Belgium , since last week , use only hospital ICU and deaths as a covid seriousness metric .

ShineOn7 · 29-09-2020 10:26pm

I really don't know what to believe, there seems to be conflicting information from both sides every day

On one hand: is this just another Casedemic myth if we dig a little deeper into the facts?

On the other hand:

The government and NPHET know that if they came out and said "these new high numbers aren't as serious as they look" that the Irish would party like 19 Paddy's Days all rolled into one. There's a serious drinking problem in this country and they know it

If they admitted that the case numbers aren't a worry you'd see an even bigger surge in house parties and scenes like we've seen in Galway and more

ShineOn7 · 29-09-2020 10:28pm

normanoffside wrote: »

What we are missing is a critical and investigative media.

What you'll get: appalling "journalists" asking about weddings and Halloween

drunkmonkey · 29-09-2020 11:22pm

prunudo wrote: »

78 days, is that for real, on every test or just possible on some tests given certain circumstances.

It's all tests, That's one issue the other is the false positive rates, it's estimated 9 out of 10 positives are false.

McNamara mentioned it above but the CCO started talking about false negatives. To know the rate is very important as we've based all our restrictions around the daily positive test result number.

Should be an interesting day ahead tomorrow...

29-09-2020 11:25pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

There you have it folks CCO of the HSE admits PCR testing picking up covid weeks after infection...these are recorded as positive covid results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_cl63FgAhQ

How cases are recorded is also questionable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZolPvWW8oo

Will the general public ever understand what the daily cases actually mean rather then just getting frightened by them, we really need the Media to start getting at the truth of what's happening.

Mix all the above in with the false positive rates and they're little justification for how the Government are behaving.

At what level of hospitalisations would you accept restrictions?

drunkmonkey · 29-09-2020 11:39pm

Deleted User wrote: »

At what level of hospitalisations would you accept restrictions?

What are you counting as hospitalisations? What's an acceptable test result to base policy on?

30-09-2020 12:23am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

What are you counting as hospitalisations? What's an acceptable test result to base policy on?

I'm counting people being hospitalised as a result of Covid 19, the disease caused by the virus and diagnosed by a Doctor. So at what level of hospitalisations caused by Covid 19 would you accept restrictions? 500? 1000? 5000?

If we never reach the point you'd be worried about then there's no issue. But if you're going down the route of claiming you don't trust the test or that some cases aren't cases at all, you should also be willing to explain at what level of pressure on the health service you might think some restrictions would be necessary as clearly you are confident we would never reach that point.

Danno · 30-09-2020 12:31am

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm counting people being hospitalised as a result of Covid 19, the disease caused by the virus and diagnosed by a Doctor. So at what level of hospitalisations caused by Covid 19 would you accept restrictions? 500? 1000? 5000?

If we never reach the point you'd be worried about then there's no issue. But if you're going down the route of claiming you don't trust the test or that some cases aren't cases at all, you should also be willing to explain at what level of pressure on the health service you might think some restrictions would be necessary as clearly you are confident we would never reach that point.

4.99 million. It would then be all over in a fortnight.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 12:59am

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm counting people being hospitalised as a result of Covid 19, the disease caused by the virus and diagnosed by a Doctor. So at what level of hospitalisations caused by Covid 19 would you accept restrictions? 500? 1000? 5000?

If you want a number, 882 deaths in the next 6mts as a direct result of Covid and related complications
That's probably about 8000 hospitalisations I'm not sure.

Would you be ok with those numbers yourself?

30-09-2020 1:08am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

If you want a number, 882 deaths in the next 6mts as a direct result of Covid and related complications
That's probably about 8000 hospitalisations I'm not sure.

Would you be ok with those numbers yourself?

8000 hospitalisations in six months is an average of 300 a week, we can probably cope with that if spread evenly.

The problem is we are currently recording about 70 to 100 hospitalisations a week. Cases are doubling about every three weeks. So in 9 weeks we are at maybe 250 weekly hospitalisations. Then 3 weeks after that it's 400 to 500. At this point our hospitals won't cope. It will also make it very difficult to stop it spreading in the hospital itself.

patnor1011 · 30-09-2020 7:15am

Deleted User wrote: »

8000 hospitalisations in six months is an average of 300 a week, we can probably cope with that if spread evenly.

The problem is we are currently recording about 70 to 100 hospitalisations a week. Cases are doubling about every three weeks. So in 9 weeks we are at maybe 250 weekly hospitalisations. Then 3 weeks after that it's 400 to 500. At this point our hospitals won't cope. It will also make it very difficult to stop it spreading in the hospital itself.

That is all just theory at this point. Fact is that we have no clue how many cases are there simply due to the nature of covid - unprecedented high percentage of non symptomatic cases make any estimate just a guess.
For what we know there could be 10x or 40x more cases than what is caught by testing. Doubling therefore will not happen many times as soon there may be quite nobody who was not exposed yet.
Since virus is in circulation pretty much about a year now how do you know you never had it? Or anyone else?

zerosugarbuzz · 30-09-2020 7:31am

ShineOn7 wrote: »

I really don't know what to believe, there seems to be conflicting information from both sides every day

On one hand: is this just another Casedemic myth if we dig a little deeper into the facts?

On the other hand:

The government and NPHET know that if they came out and said "these new high numbers aren't as serious as they look" that the Irish would party like 19 Paddy's Days all rolled into one. There's a serious drinking problem in this country and they know it

If they admitted that the case numbers aren't a worry you'd see an even bigger surge in house parties and scenes like we've seen in Galway and more

You’re probably right there. The problem is the longer this charade goes on the bigger the eventual party will be. Another few weeks of littlenor no real deaths and even the meekest of sheep will see reality.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 8:28am

Deleted User wrote: »

8000 hospitalisations in six months is an average of 300 a week, we can probably cope with that if spread evenly.

The problem is we are currently recording about 70 to 100 hospitalisations a week. Cases are doubling about every three weeks. So in 9 weeks we are at maybe 250 weekly hospitalisations. Then 3 weeks after that it's 400 to 500. At this point our hospitals won't cope. It will also make it very difficult to stop it spreading in the hospital itself.

Well we should be able to cope those are previous Irish Flu season figures I gave you.

Now on to your hospitalisations. You say were currently recording 70 to 100 hospitalisations a week, the problem is and it was highlighted by McNamara above those 70 or 100 aren't in fact hospitalisations from Covid. These are people who could have ended up in hospital from a car crash etc and may have no signs of Covid except for testing positive that tells us they had it sometime in the last couple of months, we don't know if they currently have it, it's not the reason there in hospital. Possibly some have active covid but I'd revise those hospitalisations down by 90% to estimate who's actually in hospital sick as a direct result of catching covid.
We know 9 out of 10 cases are false positives.
Your exponential growth estimate can't happen as we know the virus isn't that deadly.
Your also making the assumption that anybody going into hospital never comes out to free up capacity.

Your not on your own Professor Samuel McConkey is making the same mistake and Professor Nolan in also doing it in his charting. They both also base their figures on nobody having any underlying immunity from previous coronaviruses, that's completely wrong as we know plenty have as the virus has 0 effect on them.

McNamara knows enough about covid to skewer the 4 chaps in the dock this morning. He's been listening to all the experts over the last few weeks, looking forward to watching it.
They've very serious questions to answer this morning.

funnydoggy · 30-09-2020 10:12am

Will this meeting be recorded? Have a college lecture but would love to watch after

3xh · 30-09-2020 10:20am

Here’s the oireachtas website......

https://www.oireachtas.ie/?tab=committee

If you scroll down the page, they’ll have a previous videos link to click. Should be there later.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 10:21am

It's live here, https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/cr3-live/

Sir Guy who smiles · 30-09-2020 10:40am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

There you have it folks CCO of the HSE admits PCR testing picking up covid weeks after infection...Mix all the above in with the false positive rates and they're little justification for how the Government are behaving.

I have worked with PCR tests for over a decade, admittedly in animals, but general characteristics of these tests are:

1. You are far more likely to get a false negative than a false positive.

2. You may get positive tests for a while after the organism is no longer viable, but that will be in a small minority of cases.

Sir Guy who smiles · 30-09-2020 10:42am

prunudo wrote: »

78 days, is that for real, on every test or just possible on some tests given certain circumstances.

It can happen but I would think it would be rare. In most cases the RNA fragments will be removed by the host's immune system along with the live virus.

Sir Guy who smiles · 30-09-2020 10:43am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's all tests, That's one issue the other is the false positive rates, it's estimated 9 out of 10 positives are false

Estimated by who?
I think this is bollox.

_Kaiser_ · 30-09-2020 10:49am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's live here, https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/cr3-live/

Watching this now and it's clear to me that Glynn hasn't a notion. Every answer is vague and non-committal and driven by his fear of being wrong compounded by being limited by his own area of (academic) expertise

As I've said already, the job is too big for him I think, and yet this is the man Government are looking to for the decisions.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 10:51am

Sir Guy who smiles wrote: »

It can happen but I would think it would be rare. In most cases the RNA fragments will be removed by the host's immune system along with the live virus.

What do you mean by this, are you suggesting that once the virus is no longer active that it won't be picked up, for someone with years of experience of these tests you should know that the number of cycles will effect the result. The CCO could not give the number of cycles were using yesterday. If were using the same as the UK which I think someone said we are that time limit for picking up traces of RNA for a positive result of Covid is 78 days.
The CCO said it himself yesterday it's for week after infection.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 10:58am

Sir Guy who smiles wrote: »

Estimated by who?
I think this is bollox.

To give you a 100% accurate answer to that question we need to know the false positive rate in Ireland we know the UK rate, the CCO didn't know yesterday.
I'm waiting to hear the answer at the moment i'm sure McNamara will ask it again.
If you have a false positive rate of 1% over 10,000 cases and we are reporting 100 positives a day you'll know what the true positivity rate is from your work. Which would be?

3xh · 30-09-2020 11:13am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's live here, https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/cr3-live/

^^^ So Glynn’s strategy is to change nothing for the next 6-9 months, hope something new like treatments or vaccine appears before then, if not, they’ll look to alter the NPHET advice on how we ‘live’ with Covid beyond next summer.

Sir Guy who smiles · 30-09-2020 11:21am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

What do you mean by this, are you suggesting that once the virus is no longer active that it won't be picked up, for someone with years of experience of these tests you should know that the number of cycles will effect the result. The CCO could not give the number of cycles were using yesterday. If were using the same as the UK which I think someone said we are that time limit for picking up traces of RNA for a positive result of Covid is 78 days.
The CCO said it himself yesterday it's for week after infection.

Yes, the time limit is 78 days. But as you approach that limit the number of cases that will still give a positive gets exponentially smaller. At 39 days-halfway to the limit, far less than half of cases will give a positive.

Sir Guy who smiles · 30-09-2020 11:23am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

To give you a 100% accurate answer to that question we need to know the false positive rate in Ireland we know the UK rate, the CCO didn't know yesterday.
I'm waiting to hear the answer at the moment i'm sure McNamara will ask it again.
If you have a false positive rate of 1% over 10,000 cases and we are reporting 100 positives a day you'll know what the true positivity rate is from your work. Which would be?

The false positive rate is a function of prevalence and specificity, and it changes with changing prevalence.

I see you are unable to provide a reputable source for your"nine out of ten" false positive "estimate".

gmisk · 30-09-2020 11:27am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's all tests, That's one issue the other is the false positive rates, it's estimated 9 out of 10 positives are false.

McNamara mentioned it above but the CCO started talking about false negatives. To know the rate is very important as we've based all our restrictions around the daily positive test result number.

Should be an interesting day ahead tomorrow...

You can't just throw up that 9 out of 10 line with no sources....it sounds like complete nonsense.
So you have a link to a study or report?

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 11:31am

Sir Guy who smiles wrote: »

Yes, the time limit is 78 days. But as you approach that limit the number of cases that will still give a positive gets exponentially smaller. At 39 days-halfway to the limit, far less than half of cases will give a positive.

What exponentially smaller number are you suggesting, let's say 100 tests what percentage will only be picked up for 39 days?
Isn't the detection time depending on the number of cycles the lab runs.

drunkmonkey · 30-09-2020 11:46am

gmisk wrote: »

You can't just throw up that 9 out of 10 line with no sources....it sounds like complete nonsense.
So you have a link to a study or report?

You don't need a study you just need to know the false positive rate, how about 2.4% would you accept that as a figure to make calculations on based on this https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf

If your not happy with that will you suggest a figured based on your own research.

sabat · 30-09-2020 11:57am

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Watching this now and it's clear to me that Glynn hasn't a notion. Every answer is vague and non-committal and driven by his fear of being wrong compounded by being limited by his own area of (academic) expertise

As I've said already, the job is too big for him I think, and yet this is the man Government are looking to for the decisions.

How did he get the job? Is it a direct appointment or voted on somewhere?

mikekerry · 30-09-2020 12:02pm

sabat wrote: »

How did he get the job? Is it a direct appointment or voted on somewhere?

The way these clowns operate he probably won it in a raffle that he didn't know he had entered.

JP Liz V1 · 30-09-2020 12:11pm

3xh wrote: »

Great to see. Michael McNamara TD has been only one of a very few TDs willing to question the figures coming out from Government and NPHET.

Hopefully this doesn’t fizzle out. If NPHET and their numbers are all above board, they’ll have nothing to hide nor worry about, as they say.

No wonder NPHET trying to avoid Dail meetings

is_that_so · 30-09-2020 12:26pm

mikekerry wrote: »

The way these clowns operate he probably won it in a raffle that he didn't know he had entered.

He's employed in the DoH. Like all public jobs these days there's an open competition.

is_that_so · 30-09-2020 12:28pm

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

No wonder NPHET trying to avoid Dail meetings

Most entities do. There's a lot of nonsense in them too and TDs grandstanding about things they know nothing about. It's still an effective system but some of them are a lot better than others.

sabat · 30-09-2020 12:29pm

is_that_so wrote: »

He's employed in the DoH. Like all public jobs these days there's an open competition.

So between Holohan retiring and him getting the (interim) post what happened?

is_that_so · 30-09-2020 12:36pm

sabat wrote: »

So between Holohan retiring and him getting the (interim) post what happened?

Holohan is on sabbatical as his wife is in palliative care for cancer. He will be back.

gmisk · 30-09-2020 12:40pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

You don't need a study you just need to know the false positive rate, how about 2.4% would you accept that as a figure to make calculations on based on this https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf

If your not happy with that will you suggest a figured based on your own research.

2.5%.... is not 9 out of 10....so you just made that up?

Of course with tests you get false negatives and false positives, I would imagine thats why some people are retested.

https://www.newstalk.com/news/coronavirus-testing-false-positives-1082333

wellwhynot · 30-09-2020 12:42pm

I thought Jim O’Callaghan asked some excellent questions too. I noticed Prof. Nolan answered quite aggressively that he didn’t like the narrative of questioning. Are they not to be questioned at all?

The question of hospital cases with Covid symptoms or just a positive swab? Likewise with deaths. Why can’t they just answer? They knew this would come up. I hope the answer they send regarding the denotification of deaths does not include the ‘probable deaths’ since denotified due to a negative Covid test.

I am just so fed up with this. It must be the only ‘pandemic’ in history with 50 - 80% asymptomatic, low deaths and empty hospitals.

gmisk · 30-09-2020 12:45pm

is_that_so wrote: »

Most entities do. There's a lot of nonsense in them too and TDs grandstanding about things they know nothing about. It's still an effective system but some of them are a lot better than others.

Unless you are John Delaney they loved him....I wish I was joking...
https://youtu.be/hiIWeJV8vTE

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/john-delaney-s-easy-ride-in-front-of-d%25C3%25A1il-committee-1.2942130%3fmode=amp

Tenzor07 · 30-09-2020 12:47pm

wellwhynot wrote: »

I thought Jim O’Callaghan asked some excellent questions too. I noticed Prof. Nolan answered quite aggressively that he didn’t like the narrative of questioning. Are they not to be questioned at all?
The question of hospital cases with Covid symptoms or just a positive swab? Likewise with deaths. Why can’t they just answer? They knew this would come up. I hope the answer they send regarding the denotification of deaths does not include the ‘probable deaths’ since denotified due to a negative Covid test.
I am just so fed up with this. It must be the only ‘pandemic’ in history with 50 - 80% asymptomatic, low deaths and empty hospitals.

We must not question the "world's leading experts" on the NHPET team, they are above questioning by representatives of the public, we must obey all they tell us...

is_that_so · 30-09-2020 12:51pm

gmisk wrote: »

Unless you are John Delaney they loved him....I wish I was joking...
https://youtu.be/hiIWeJV8vTE

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/john-delaney-s-easy-ride-in-front-of-d%25C3%25A1il-committee-1.2942130%3fmode=amp

But John is a sound man! Everyone knows that!

wellwhynot · 30-09-2020 12:55pm

If NPHET are not transparent it means they have something to hide.

This week alone there are 26 outbreaks in nursing homes. Is an outbreak 3+ people? That is minimum (more likely more) 78 people who are most at risk with Covid today. Are the deaths still occurring mostly in nursing homes?

gmisk · 30-09-2020 12:56pm

Tenzor07 wrote: »

We must not question the "world's leading experts" on the NHPET team, they are above questioning by representatives of the public, we must obey all they tell us...

NPHET....for the love of God why can so few people not even spell it correctly.

Michael McNamara TD getting to the truth, Cases, PCR testing flaws.

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