Coronavirus - Taiwan 2021

You double dipped in the same sauce scores of other guys did before you. :flushed:

The MOS burger was on the way to the hospitalā€¦

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And we shall not speak of the encounter with the discharged seamen. :rofl:

Guy

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I copped to that already.

It was just one night and those were different times.

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Wondering about the cram school teacher after 122 days.

What exactly happens to you if you test positive after so long ? They send you off to the hospital and you get locked up? If so, until when? Testes clear? If it is an imported case it means his tests might not show ā€˜clear to go homeā€™ until another 4 months? Whatā€™s the government procedure to deal with such cases?

Standard quarantine I guess with repeat testing. But everyone must know itā€™s a farce.

Are you implying that 3 separate highly sensitive and highly specific tests (PCR, IgM and IgG) are all throwing repeated false positives for sarscov2 for the same person? Do you know the statistical improbability that someone who did not have sarscov2 would have a false positive for PCR, IgM and IgG? The healthy ministry has numbered these cases because they obviously have/had the virus.

IgM antibodies for sarscov2 decline very quickly and antibody titers are usually higher the stronger the immune response/sicker you are. Both of these guys never had any symptoms so youā€™d expect lower antibody titers than higher ones. Positive PCRs + positive IgMs in people who never had any symptoms = thatā€™s why itā€™s more probable these are recent infections than infections from many months ago.

The idea that these guys have had persistent active infections for 3-6 months without any symptoms? Voodoo. Active sarscov2 infection doesnā€™t persist for this long in non immunocompromised people. The rare cases of months long infections have been in immunocompromised peopleā€¦

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One thing that baffles me is that Taiwan clearly isnā€™t COVID-free. There were those two research papers (which were both condemned for ethical issues but not for methodological flaws) showing that we have about 0.25% seroprevalence. Cases pop up here and there - not all imports - and they are supposedly nailed down. But is it really technically possible to track and trace with that level of success? You only have to be unlucky once, and booom.

So why no booom? Any thoughts on that?

Sorry. Itā€™s been a crazy week.

A high enough percentage of people following sensible preventative measures without any need for lockdown?

That and isnā€™t there some evidence of the type of vaccine for measles being an effective way to prevent COVID.

There are a lot of theories. Few of which make sense when compared to other countries in the region.

Ah, I detect a hint of red dog.

Still itā€™s a good way to invigorate the thread. A newcomer who thinks he somehow has a better handle on the virus than the CDC. :popcorn:

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I canā€™t think of any other explanation, personally. But apparently Dougie has a life sciences background so Iā€™d be interested to hear his take on it.

If itā€™s been here for the past 6 months then it should have increased exponentially.

Or, the exponential rule doesnā€™t apply in nature as it does on a whiteboard.

Or, there havenā€™t been any untraced cases here for the past 6 months.

The answer is a tricky one.

or Taiwan is like the native American Indians just before Europeans came over with smallpox, etc. Time will tell.

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Or China designed the virus so that people with Han ancestry arenā€™t so easily infected. And by a cruel trick of nature (good for Taiwan), it turns out that this is 100x the case when Han blood has some Taiwan aboriginal blood mixed in with it.

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Not exactly .
And I am not saying they werenā€™t infected previously

But

  • I know PCR often picks up infections that were cleared months ago. There are thousands of examples around the world for coronavirus where this is happening . Iā€™m not even aware of one case where that person was proven to have then infected somebody else three months or six months down the line. If you know of any case let me know.

  • IgG and IgM tests relative to PCR have poor sensitivity and specificity . So maybe in best case they could be 99 per cent specific . That means 1/100 is a false positive. Thatā€™s a lot of false positives across the population . Sometimes they will be cross reacting with other antigens in the blood that just happen to be similar to covid-19. Sometimes the batch itself will be faulty. The manufacturers claims of specificity may not stack up well in the real world.

  • some people may be carrying very low level infections, because of their unusual immune system or immunocompromised

When you are doing tests across the population at large these things happen.

Number of people who have tested positive in self paid retesting must be almost forty. If theyā€™re picking up these infections in the community then the virus must be everywhere. But, well, itā€™s not is it?

You know what else is funny? None of these people are ever symptomatic. Ever.

The tests are picking up historical infections from people who are coming from countries where the virus is everywhere to a country where it is nowhere.

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Yeah. All of this. You would think somebody would have thought it important enough to find out a definitive answer. In fact youā€™d think the place would be swarming with epidemiologists poking things up peopleā€™s noses. But apparently itā€™s a complete non-issue.