Roylab Stats is doing an EXCELLENT job in trying to count the number of people who have the virus NOW, who DIED from the virus and re-stating that testing is worth nothing on asymptomatic people. I truly appreciate the time and trouble you go through every day to help us stay informed. I hope you continue to do so. You are providing an essential service. I appreciate your honesty and transparency. Keep up the good work! :)
4 years ago
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I have been watching since March, and it’s insane how this pandemic has gotten worse just by watching your streams.
4 years ago
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I'm so surprised your posts are commented by smart people while the live stream is full of trolls speaking in thousends of different languages. When in March you had 100K spects everybody was talking in English :/ Btw, you give the exact data taken from the govt. of each country instead of changing it in other ways (like WOM does for Spain's data, which has been changed hundreds of times) so just keep updating in this way. You're doing a good job.
4 years ago
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Been keeping an eye on your live updates ever since you started. I use to watch it every day when there was around 9 cases confirmed in the U.K. obsessively so as it scared me. I’m grateful for the hard work you put into the live updates. Even now I check back weekly to see how it’s going world wide. Keep up the hard work 💛. And thank you for all the detailed explanations
4 years ago
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In America they are requiring you test negative for covid 2 days before procedures but not all clinics follow that . The give you the pcr and ab test just to see if you ever had covid19.
4 years ago
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i have a question regarding the recovered cases in different countries like Spain, UK, France and some other countries why Ain't you getting the recovered patients data of those country while I guess every country updates its data regarding these things! other than that we can't thank you much for your such a huge social work! hats off man and keep it up!
4 years ago
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Hey Roylab, I just want to say you're so great at putting effort on your live count and running your computer 24/7 just to keep the live stream going. Keep it man and I am looking forward to see you on the live chat again.
4 years ago
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Mass testing is very important to contain covid, but Italy, like other European countries, underestimated the potential impact of the second wave and started increasing tests only in October, when was too late. I think second wave could have been avoided completely as China did it by reopening countries only with a very low number of daily new cases and with a great testing system.
4 years ago
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Netherlands: Total cases: 414.745 Total deaths: 8.043 Current active cases: 2.295 (Source: www.rivm.nl) Total recovered: 404.407=414.745-8.043-2.295
4 years ago (edited)
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Roylab Stats
The last time I commented on why recovered numbers are incorrect.
I will try to explain why case numbers are incorrect.
#1 Until Feb. there was a hope to stop spreading like we did against SARS/MERS.
The only way was a well organized process of detecting, isolating and discharging.
To achieve it, WHO recommended increasing rtPCR capacity and medical capacity, and recommended keeping strict discharge rule.
Only these measures can assure viruses will not spread in our community.
Definition of Confirmed Cases is for concept of public health.
I am sorry to say that 'Confirmed Cases' is about who has the virus NOW.
It is not for already recovered person. (this is related to Ab test survey performed by Spanish government)
Confirmed cases means only rtPCR positive.
But 2 major exceptions were emerged during outbreak.
#1
Until Feb. 11, China's accumulative confirmed case was only 44K.
In Feb. 12, China announced 14K daily cases including symptomatic patients without rtPCR testing. It was just after new big hospital was built.
Surprisingly the number of 14K without PCR testing results was recorded in WHO situation reports as confirmed cases.
Considering the economic indicators, we can guess the current situation of China. I think the completion of new hospital was the turning point.
I remember 14K cases gave me the first difficulty because I only tried to show confirmed cases using rtPCR.
#3 In Apr. 14, US CDC announced new terminology "Total cases/deaths".
Total Cases/Deaths included "Confirmed ~" and "Probable ~". This change was very similar to what China did on Feb. 12.
Some states of US began to report only "total cases/deaths", thus a discrimination between confirmed cases and probable cases has been impossible.
WorldOMeter described in detail about this change.
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/us-data/
Because of this, WorldOMeter changed the names of columns from "confirmed ~" to "total ~" according to the new US CDC guideline.
But WHO situation reports, and JHU dashboard and WHO dashboard don't use terminology of "total ~".
I think WHO accepted US total cases as confirmed cases. WHO keeps using the term of "confirmed cases".
#4 New Zealand government has been separately announced confirmed and probable, but recovered numbers exceeded confirmed cases.
Thus every dashboards are showing confirmed + probable numbers.
#5 In April, antibody test(Ab test) was a big issue because it is cheaper and faster than rtPCR test. (Some said that the Ab test will be a game changer)
One big misunderstanding about the Ab test is that it can be used for multi-purpose.
But the Ab test should be carefully applied to symptomatic patients in emergency,
for symptomatic patients only positive results have meaning.
Because our body makes antibodies usually 1 weeks after infection, negative results can't assure that a patient doesn't have a virus.
#6 I remember US medical staff urgently requested approval of Ab test because they had to face a bad situation and had to check the patient's status.
It wasn't because Ab test can replace the rtPCR test.
#7 Confirmed cases have the importance that someone has a virus that can be spread now.
Active cases imply the number monitored by health care workers.
We must know who has the virus now.
Interpreting the results of the Ab test is difficult.
For an asymptomatic person, both positive and negative results guarantee nothing.
Positive doesn't mean a person has a virus now. Negative doesn't mean a person doesn't have a virus now.
To know whether a person has the virus, rtPCR should be performed again.
So I want to say that Ab testing on asymptomatic people has no benefit to the community.
I heard a rumor that some US clinics want to receive negative results of Ab test from visitors.
Ab test can't be used as certification of virus-free for normal people.
I doubt that the negative result of rtPCR can be used as certification because of false negative.
(In previous post, I commented that the definition of recovered requires 2day consecutive negative results due to the possibility of false negative)
#8 All testing methods can be evaluated using Sensitivity/Specificity/Accuracy.
To maximize diagnostic ability(accuracy), almost all testing methods should adjust cut-off value.
As adjusting cut-off value, the number of false-positive(Sensitivity) or false-negative(Specificity) can be reduced.
But unfortunately, an adjusting value to reduce false positives causes increasement of false-negatives, vice versa.
Usually the cut-off was determined to minimize total false results.
Until now several guidelines indicate PCR test has 95% of accuracy, but we don't know how many false positives and false negatives were during evaluation.
#9 Early Pandemic, WHO urged to increase accuracy of PCR test kits.
And the quality of PCR test kits was issued in many countries.
But now no one cares about the accuracy of the PCR test kit now.
We are facing the 2nd wave. I think we should check testing methods again.
4 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 960