RE: Meet the world's top Covid 'variant hunter'21 Feb 2021 02:00
Can somebody help me out here as I'm getting confused . We replace Innova with Surescreen to open schools ( not seen any data yet? ) then Avacta if/when validated , tested in Spain, results out , Liverpool data not yet released.
The Innova data released had specificity of 100 and sensitivity of 96 but when used in Liverpool it was actually in the 70 range.
Avacta sensitivity 96.7 in lab.
Is the plan to PCR test all those found positive , to test for variants ? What about all those that aren't picked up , as the figures quoted are for those with high viral load and we know from Liverpool what these figures quoted for S and S translate to in reality and that was with professionals administering them. It is fantastic that infection rates are dropping , but we are in lockdown , life on hold. We all know what will happen as soon as we start to mingle.
The govt surge doc released explaining when to get tested says you have to have a test if you are in a surge area ,even if you have been vaccinated or had covid more then 90 days ago , so one can only conclude that the concern is so great that the govt believes that some of these new variants may make the vaccine much less effective. Meanwhile variants continuing to be found at an alarming rate with only a tiny proportion of the world vaccinated and an equally tiny proportion doing sequencing. We haven't closed our borders totally and we are now about to hear Boris deliver his pathway out of lockdown. This will entail flooding the UK with self administered LFTs , entrusting people take as recommended and report results honestly. The govt will use LFTs to get people back to work and PCR for clinical use , international travel, surge testing , carehomes and sequencing.
Let us assume the master plan works , all in UK vaccinated , all have antibodies , therefore all have low viral loads , nothing picked up ? Variants go on a rampage? Not sure I have the full picture.K