Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
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Clearly as you say @PL75, AS is satisfied that specificity is of a very high order and that AVCT's affimer based testing is clinically impressive. But even with the best of tests there will be unavoidable false positives. I guess the way the authorities look at it is that the economic and societal downsides of a large number of false positives is far outweighed by the overall hoped for benefit - that mass testing will bring things under control pending roll out of a vaccine.
Way back at the start of the pandemic WHO's mantra was test, test, test. The political kudos that will flow from successfully introducing a simple, cheap almost instantaneous self mass testing device will be immense - a get out of gaol card for the government. I cannot see the false positive issue derailing this with prevalence rising again.
In yesterday's D Telegraph there was an piece about current forecasts of a significant increase in mortalities if something isn't done quickly - circuit breaking measures etc. - being proposed by the CMO and others. And then saying that over this weekend the government will be looking at all the options. In amongst it was a snippet that it had been decided Mr Johnson's announcement for next Friday is to be brought forward to Tuesday.
Interesting to speculate that next Friday's announcement (post the market close at 5pm on past similar occasions) would have included something on mass testing allowing AVCT to disclose where things are up to on the 28th? Or will something come out on Tuesday about both tightening the current restrictions further and mass testing.
Interesting week ahead!
Come on parry400, say what the fxxx The Sunday Times reckons are the Covid winners, put us all out of our misery you stupid buxxer.
Affimers are highly specific, so let’s hope as close to 100% as possible in tandem with specificity that’s lower according to the traditional comparison but crucially 100% during the infectious period. The perfect mass screening test. It can then be used in combination with confirmatory testing without overwhelming PCR/BAMS capacity - which should be up to 500,000 a day by then. Anyway, why listen to me, when that’s EXACTLY what Sir Al said in an RNS:
‘Authorities AROUND THE WORLD are now looking to carry-out frequent mass testing to identify the MOST INFECTIOUS people promptly in order to reduce infection rates and combat the coronavirus pandemic. That requires a HIGHLY SPECIFIC test to MINIMISE FALSE POSITIVES which would otherwise overwhelm healthcare systems. The Affimer reagents that we have generated are VERY SPECIFIC to SARS-CoV-2 antigen and we are CONFIDENT of meeting and EXCEEDING the clinical performance requirements for identifying the MOST INFECTIOUS people.’
Parry400 - you have posted your Sunday Times link on over a dozen boards but no-one can read it because it comes back saying 'This account owner limits who can view their Tweets'.
absolutely right Fardistan. if the prevalence is 0.1% (which it is now) and we have a test which is 99% specific and carry out 10 million tests in a day as per the PM, we could get approximately 100,000 false positives who would all be wrongly isolated along with their families.
proponents of mass testing would argue, perhaps with some merit, that it is better to wrongly isolate 100,000 and their contacts in order to let the rest carry on as normal
@abdalina re "Rate of false positives is a function of prevalence and test specificity which is the biggest stumbling block currently to implementation..." Clearly a lot of false positives is not a good outcome. So is this an argument for not ramping up mass testing until or maybe only in specific hotspots (and maybe unless) prevalence is high? Or have I got the wrong end of the (test) stick?
Am just going to be a slight stickler for accuracy
Death rate is not impacted by the denominator or numerator for that matter. It is just the number of deaths per 1000 of population. Perhaps you're referring to observed case fatality rate which is dependent on the number of tests happening. It is reasonably well established that the CFR is around 0.5% now from around the world.
Identifying infectious people will not reduce false positive rate but rather increase identification of true positives. Rate of false positives is a function of prevalence and test specificity which is the biggest stumbling block currently to implementation and one of the reasons of the impending legal action against moonshot.
Apologies:)
I'm thinking we have a new Centurion
Great post Chiron, thanks
Spot on and perhaps to add no 8. - Public panic to get tested.
Hoping to share some insight as to why-
1. Despite 'delay fear of missing out' no credible testing solution in place- DNAnudge novelty has worn off in units as simply too few tests run per unit. Iabra simply not credible. Randox, no explanation needed.
2. Hospitals that were screening staff weekly have/shortly stopping due to lack of capacity. Note hospital staff now proven to be casual for large proportion of nosocomial infections. Perfect storm.
3. Public labs hugely critical of having to use multiple testing reagents and no standardised limit values causing havoc in labs and reporting.
4. Only 6% of population proven infection. Immune response better understood- only temporary 'immunity' and re-infection now well documented.
5. Confidence intervals for regional R-values are wide. Thus unreliable. SAGE expect them to be higher than reported.
6. Low death rates presently in part are a function of large denominator from random screening (REACT-1). This will correct as prevalence increases and random testing decreases.
7. Identifying infectious subjects is now governments focus to minimise false positive rates and isolate more effectively.
For almost every single point Avacta has an offering be it POC test or ELISA/BAMS. To suggest in some way as time goes on the need for Avacta decreases is simply laughable. The when is unknown but eagerly awaited, the why, well hopefully it's clear from above.
Thank you to previous posters for kind words.
I maintain if Avacta bring to market what they have declared in the previous RNS's this will be transformational on many levels.
Unashamedly confident, as always good luck all (and to Fulham and Saracens-don't judge).
Chiron.