Of the 14 tests, only three delivered consistently reliable results. Even the best had some flaws.
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Coronavirus Antibody Tests: Can You Trust the Results? - The New York Times - 0 views
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Already Americans are scrambling to take antibody tests to see if they might escape lockdowns. Public health experts are wondering if those with positive results might be allowed to return to work.
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these tactics mean nothing if the test results can’t be trusted
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The proportion of people in the United States who have been exposed to the coronavirus is likely to be 5 percent or less, Dr. Hensley said. “If your kit has a 3 percent false-positive, how do you interpret that? It’s basically impossible,” he said. “If your kit has 14 percent false positive, it’s useless.”
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The duo recruited Dr. Jeffrey Whitman and Dr. Caryn Bern, who last year published an analysis of antibody tests for Chagas disease. Other graduate students and postdoctoral fellows volunteered to help perform the evaluations.
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In all, the investigators analyzed 10 rapid tests that deliver a yes-no signal for antibodies, and two tests using a lab technique known as Elisa that indicate the amount of antibodies present and are generally considered to be more reliable.
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The Bay Area team finished evaluating 12 tests in record time, less than a month. By comparison, the Chagas project required a team of three people working for more than a year just to compare four tests.
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Having a study design already in hand helped speed the work, but there was one key difference. Decades of data have shown that Chagas disease elicits lifelong immunity.
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Each test was evaluated with the same set of blood samples: from 80 people known to be infected with the coronavirus, at different points after infection; 108 samples donated before the pandemic; and 52 samples from people who were positive for other viral infections but had tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.
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Tests made by Sure Biotech and Wondfo Biotech, along with an in-house Elisa test, produced the fewest false positives.
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A test made by Bioperfectus detected antibodies in 100 percent of the infected samples, but only after three weeks of infection.
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None of the tests did better than 80 percent until that time period, which was longer than expected, Dr. Hsu said.
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the tests are less likely to produce false negatives the longer ago the initial infection occurred,
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There are multiple tests that have specificities greater than 95 percent.
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Dr. Krammer has developed a two-step Elisa test that he said has 100 percent specificity and delivers a measure of the quantity of IgM and IgG antibodies a person has.
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Scanwell Health, a Los Angeles-based start-up, has ordered millions of test kits from Innovita, a Chinese manufacturer, and has applied to the Food and Drug Administration to market the tests for at-home use.In the new study, the Innovita test detected antibodies in 83 percent of infected people and yielded a false-positive rate of 4 percent.
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Scanwell Health, said the study looked at an earlier version of Innovita’s test and not the “newer, improved version” his company had ordered. “It will be interesting to see how it performs,”
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"A team of scientists worked around the clock to evaluate 14 antibody tests. A few worked as advertised. Most did not."
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COVID-19 Testing Project - Pre-print manuscript - 0 views
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April 24, 2020: Read our pre-print manuscript. This is a preliminary report of work that has not been certified by peer review. This should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
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"We are a multidisciplinary team of researchers and physicians at UCSF, UC Berkeley, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and Innovative Genomics Institute."
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Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident : Goats and Soda : NPR - 1 views
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April 23, 2020
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Virus researchers say there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as result of a laboratory accident in China or anywhere else.
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after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols.
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All of the evidence points to this not being a laboratory accident," says Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Davis and director of a global project to watch for emerging viruses called PREDICT.
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all believe that the virus was transmitted between animals and humans in nature, as has happened in previous outbreaks — from Ebola to the Marburg virus — and with other known coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS.
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Rather than a laboratory misstep, researchers believe that this new coronavirus reached humans in the same way that other coronaviruses have: through "zoonotic spillover," or humans picking up pathogens from wildlife.
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the exact route from nature to people remains a mystery,
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Regardless, genetic analysis shows the virus began to spread sometime in the fall or winter of 2019, says Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University. Those same analyses refuted an earlier theory that the virus was genetically engineered in a laboratory.
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The CDC estimates that 6 out of 10 infectious diseases in people come from animals, including diseases caused by coronaviruses.
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"As we change the landscape to suit our purposes, we come more and more into contact with viruses and other pathogens that we don't have much exposure to," says Dr. Brian Bird, associate director of the OneHealth Institute at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a former CDC scientist.
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"Zoonotic transmission" or "zoonotic spillover" generally happens three ways: through excretion (feces that comes into contact with humans), slaughter (meat consumed by humans) and vector-borne (an animal biting a human). But even under these circumstances, the virus must then overcome barriers within the human body, defeating the immune system, to successfully replicate and transmit between humans themselves.
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Despite the evidence, misinformation about the virus's origins continue to proliferate. For Daszak, who has worked on other outbreaks, the pattern is all too familiar: "Every time we get a new virus emerging, we have people that say, 'This could have come from a lab,' " he says.
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"It's a real shame that the conspiracy theories can get to the level they've got with policymakers,"
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The political heat has strained the very scientific collaborations meant to detect these viruses as they emerge, warns Jonna Mazet.
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Daszak says the time for finger-pointing is over. "We have a bat virus in my neighborhood in New York killing people," he says. "Let's get real about this."
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The Lancet: Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and me... - 1 views
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Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19
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March 7, 2020: The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11, 12 This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine13 and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus. We support the call from the Director-General of WHO to promote scientific evidence and unity over misinformation and conjecture.14 We want you, the science and health professionals of China, to know that we stand with you in your fight against this virus.
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Pursuing Safe and Effective Anti-Viral Drugs for COVID-19 - NIH Director's Blog - 0 views
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Remdesivir
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when an RNA virus attempts to replicate, its polymerase is tricked into incorporating remdesivir into its genome as a foreign nucleotide, or anomalous letter.
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undecipherable, extra letter brings the replication process to a crashing halt
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An important step was just posted as a preprint yesterday—a small study showed infusion of remdesivir was effective in limiting the severity of lung disease in rhesus macaques [2]. That’s encouraging news. But the only sure way to find out if remdesivir will actually help humans who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 is to conduct a randomized, controlled clinical trial.
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NIAID’s Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, has already enrolled 805 patients at 67 testing sites.
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All trial participants must have laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections and evidence of lung involvement, such as abnormal chest X-rays, rattling sounds when breathing (rales) with a need for supplemental oxygen, or a need for mechanical ventilation.
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the study is double-blind, meaning
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The Prime Cellular Targets for the Novel Coronavirus - NIH Director's Blog - 0 views
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Posted on May 5th, 2020 by Dr. Francis Collins
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it has been remarkable and gratifying to watch researchers from around the world pull together and share their time, expertise, and hard-earned data in the urgent quest to control this devastating virus.
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a recent study that characterized the specific human cells that SARS-CoV-2 likely singles out for infection [1
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This work was driven by the mostly shuttered labs of Alex K. Shalek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge; and Jose Ordovas-Montanes at Boston Children’s Hospital. In the end, it brought together (if only remotely) dozens of their colleagues in the Human Cell Atlas Lung Biological Network and others across the U.S., Europe, and South Africa.
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The discovery suggests that SARS-CoV-2 and potentially other coronaviruses that rely on ACE2 may take advantage of the immune system’s natural defenses.
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t’s clear that these new findings, from data that weren’t originally generated with COVID-19 in mind, contained several potentially important new leads. This is another demonstration of the value of basic science.
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How COVID-19 Is Shaping the Patient Experience (PDF) - 0 views
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Recommended by Meg Sweeney © 2020 Press Ganey Associates LLCIn a Press Ganey analysis of 350,000 comments from ED and medical practice patients between January 1 and March 20, 2020, the number of comments mentioning COVID-19 has grown at an average rate of 134% each week from early February through mid-March.To identify emerging themes and provide insights and recommendations to provider organizations, we isolated and analyzed the nearly 12,000 COVID-19-related comments, generating approximately 27,000 insights and leading to the following observations
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Brain Health In The Time of the Coronavirus - BrainHQ from Posit Science - 1 views
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I've done 163 days of BrainHQ Training. I have experienced significant improvement in all categories of training: Attention, Brain Speed, Memory, People Skills, Intelligence, Navigation. Basic training schedule is every other day for 30 minutes.
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If staying at home can contribute to a decline in our physical health—which we can address with an exercise program—what does staying at home and socially isolating do to our cognitive health?
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our favorite topic at Posit Science: brain plasticity, the science of how the brain rewires itself through learning and experience.
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brain plasticity is a two-way street. In the same way that the brain can build itself through positive brain plasticity, the brain can “unbuild” itself through negative brain plasticity.
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while we are staying at home and avoiding social contact, we’re depriving our brains of the cognitive stimulation and new learning that naturally come through our everyday lives and interactions with friends, co-workers, and even random strangers.
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get your quarantine cognitive exercise program started:
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New learning
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Cognitive engagement
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BrainHQ
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I found Posit Science and BrainHQ thanks to a suggestion from Dr. Kurisu. He recommended Norman Doige's books, The Brain That Changes Itself; Personal Triumphs from the Frontiers of Brain Science and The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity. One of the case studies is about Dr. Michael Merzenich, a research who was vilified by the medical establishment for investigating neuroplasticity. Great story. Merzenich is a founder of PositScience and BrainHQ.
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GA4GH (Global Alliance for Genomics & Health) Community Response to COVID-19 - 0 views
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A Message from the GA4GH Executive Committee Ewan Birney, Heidi Rehm, Peter Goodhand, and Kathryn North The urgency of scientific data sharing is never more apparent than during a global disease outbreak. Rapid sharing of high quality data is critical for the effective and timely response to any pandemic. GA4GH has joined Wellcome and others to call for rapid, open sharing of research findings and data relevant to COVID-19. The GA4GH community is responding through the development of a variety of research and data sharing platforms and initiatives…. But in order to ensure truly equitable access to and participation in both the scientific process and its benefits, we must rigorously maintain technical and ethical standards that support the open sharing of data and knowledge—now and always.
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about - COVID HUMAN GENETIC EFFORT - 0 views
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Recommended by DeAunne Denmark, MD. Phd. : Summary of Our Work For many years, up to 25 years for some, members of the COVID Human Genetic Effort have studied the human genetic basis of life-threatening diseases striking previously healthy human beings in the course of primary infection by a variety of viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites. In particular, we and others have identified monogenic inborn errors of immunity (IEI) that selectively underlie life-threatening or lethal viral diseases in previously healthy children or adults, including various severe diseases caused by Epstein-Barr virus, herpes simplex virus encephalitis, varicella zoster virus encephalitis, fulminant hepatitis due to hepatitis A virus, lethal primary infection by cytomegalovirus, severe pneumonitis due to influenza virus or rhinovirus, beta-papillomavirus-driven skin cancer, human herpes virus 8-driven Kaposi sarcoma, and others (see references below).
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A global effort to define the human genetics of protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infec... - 0 views
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Recommended by Meg Sweeney: "Abstract SARS-CoV-2 infection displays immense inter-individual clinical variability, ranging from silent infection to lethal disease. The role of human genetics in determining clinical response to the virus remains unclear. Studies of outliers - individuals remaining uninfected despite viral exposure and healthy young patients with life-threatening disease - presents a unique opportunity to reveal human genetic determinants of infection and disease."
IT'S TIME TO BUILD - Andreessen Horowitz - 0 views
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IT'S TIME TO BUILD | a16z Podcast by Marc Andreessen - 0 views
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The Great Realisation - YouTube - 0 views
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Suggested by Ozzie Gontang, "A bed time story of how it started, and why hindsight's 2020."
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The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them by Erin Bromage - 0 views
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Recommended by Tyler Orion, "It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I'm not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown. "
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Erin Bromage: I am a Comparative Immunologist and Professor of Biology (specializing in Immunology) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. I balance Teaching, Research, and Public Service (that is, when we are allowed in our labs)."
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Coronavirus and Its Impact on US Healthcare Providers (PDF) - 0 views
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Discovered by DeAunne Denmark, MD. Phd, with the statement "It isn't clear to me how this information was collected." A new survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies in partnership with Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock examines some of the critical questions facing America's health care delivery system... (including) What will be required to ensure Americans are once again comfortable and safe in a hospital or health care setting? The Executive Summary of the online survey of 1,000 adults was conducted nationally on April 16-20, 2020.
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Which Covid-19 Data Can You Trust? - 0 views
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incomplete or incorrect data can also muddy the waters, obscuring important nuances within communities, ignoring important factors such as socioeconomic realities, and creating false senses of panic or safety, not to mention other harms such as needlessly exposing private information.
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Right now, bad data could produce serious missteps with consequences for millions.
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Whether you’re a CEO, a consultant, a policymaker, or just someone who is trying to make sense of what’s going on, it’s essential to be able to sort the good data from the misleading — or even misguided.
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These non-transparent, un-validated interventions — which are now being rolled out (or rolled back) in countries such as China, India, Israel and Vietnam — are in direct contravention to the open cross-border collaboration that scientists have adopted to address the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Data products that are too broad, too specific, or lack context.
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Public health practitioners and data privacy experts rely on proportionality
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only use the data that you absolutely need for the intended purpose and no more.
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Even data at an appropriate spatial resolution must be interpreted with caution — context is key.
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Simply presenting them, or interpreting them without a proper contextual understanding, could inadvertently lead to imposing or relaxing restrictions on lives and livelihoods, based on incomplete information.
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The technologies behind the data are unvetted or have limited utility.
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Both producers and consumers of outputs from these apps must understand where these can fall short.
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In the absence of a tightly coupled testing and treatment plan, however, these apps risk either providing false reassurance to communities where infectious but asymptomatic individuals can continue to spread disease, or requiring an unreasonably large number of people to quarantine.
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Some contact-tracing apps follow black-box algorithms, which preclude the global community of scientists from refining them or adopting them elsewhere.
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common red flags
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Models are produced and presented without appropriate expertise.
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Epidemiological models that can help predict the burden and pattern of spread of Covid-19 rely on a number of parameters that are, as yet, wildly uncertain.
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n the absence of reliable virological testing data, we cannot fit models accurately, or know confidently what the future of this epidemic will look like
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and yet numbers are being presented to governments and the public with the appearance of certainty
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Read Carefully and Trust Cautiously
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Transparency: Look for how the data, technology, or recommendations are presented.
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Thoughtfulness: Look for signs of hubris.
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Example: Telenor
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Expertise: Look for the professionals. Examine the credentials of those providing and processing the data.
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Open Platforms: Look for the collaborators.
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technology companies like Camber Systems, Cubeiq and Facebook have allowed scientists to examine their data,
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The Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, of which we are part, comprises a voluntary collaboration of epidemiologists from around the world analyzes aggregated data from technology companies to provide daily insights to city and state officials from California to Dhaka, Bangladesh
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This pandemic has been studied more intensely in a shorter amount of time than any other human event.
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"This pandemic has been studied more intensely in a shorter amount of time than any other human event. Our globalized world has rapidly generated and shared a vast amount of information about it. It is inevitable that there will be bad as well as good data in that mix. These massive, decentralized, and crowd-sourced data can reliably be converted to life-saving knowledge if tempered by expertise, transparency, rigor, and collaboration. When making your own decisions, read closely, trust carefully, and when in doubt, look to the experts."
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Everything we know about coronavirus immunity, and plenty we still don't - 0 views
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an accurate positive test may be hard to interpret: the virus is so new that researchers cannot say for sure what sort of results will signal immunity or how long that armor will last.
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policymakers may be making sweeping economic and social decisions — plans to reopen businesses or schools, for example — based on limited data, assumptions, and what’s known about other viruses.
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most experts do think an initial infection from the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, will grant people immunity to the virus for some amount of time.
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With data limited, “sometimes you have to act on a historical basis,” Anthony Fauci,
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Recommended by Tyler Orion: "People who think they've been exposed to the novel coronavirus are clamoring for antibody tests - blood screens that can detect who has previously been infected and, the hope is, signal who is protected from another case of Covid-19."
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