Elon Musk calls Covid-19 tests "bogus" after receiving different results on same day

[wiyosaya]

My point was that your statement was nonsensical:

"If Musk himself understands that the test is inaccurate, why would he take an innacurate test?"

Deflections aside, the sequence of events makes clear that the understanding postdates the test. And while the knowledge of the test's poor sensitivity may be "readily available to all" doesn't change the fact that most people -- including nearly every journalist in the nation -- doesn't grasp the difference.

Again, if Musk found out after taking the test, it is still on him. He may want to complain about it, but HE, and HE ALONE, decided to take that test.

As far as him misunderstanding the implications of the statements on the test's inaccuracies, then maybe people should not be heaping the "genius" moniker on Musk as myself and others have been pointing out; thus, the nonsensical nature of my statement intending to draw attention to the nonsensical nature of Musk's assertions.

MONEY does not necessarily equal Intelligence, though there are those in our society who seem to think it does, IMO.

And who gives a crap what "da media" says? Musk could have easily have spoken to someone who, e.g., a doctor, or someone in his employ, understands the implications of the published information about the accuracy of the test. However, it appears he chose to take a test of his choice. Get it - "He Chose" and that makes him responsible for his choice.

But what they hey, right? People will keep doing the same things over, and over again, expecting different results. Right?

 

[captaincranky]

@wiyosaya, don't worry about that mean old @Endymio, your posts still make perfect sense to me..

 

[wiyosaya]

@wiyosaya, don't worry about that mean old @Endymio, your posts still make perfect sense to me..

Gotcha! - As do yours, to me! I very quickly discovered that particular user is TS' latest "Stable Genius"

 

[Morris Minor]

National heath england said between feb and sept only 307 people died of covid under 60 without an underlying health condition in uk. if you are under 60 and healthy you should be at work.

 

[Endymio]

National heath england said between feb and sept only 307 people died of covid under 60 without an underlying health condition in uk. if you are under 60 and healthy you should be at work.

In the US this year -- the worst year Covid will ever have, and a very light flu year -- more children have died of the common flu than of Covid.

 

[wiyosaya]

In the US this year -- the worst year Covid will ever have, and a very light flu year -- more children have died of the common flu than of Covid.

Implying that COVID is less serious than the flu makes your post rather disingenuous.

 

[wiyosaya]

National heath england said between feb and sept only 307 people died of covid under 60 without an underlying health condition in uk. if you are under 60 and healthy you should be at work.

As pertaining to the pandemic response world-wide, and in the US, there are a couple of interesting recent articles out https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-early-impact-covid-scientists-revealed.html

Poor US pandemic response will reverberate in health care politics for years, health scholars warn

Much has been written about the U.S. coronavirus response. Media accounts frequently turn to experts for their insights—commonly, epidemiologists or physicians. Countless surveys have also queried Americans and individuals from around the world about how the pandemic has affected them and their...

phys.org

 

[Endymio]

Media accounts frequently turn to experts for their insights

More accurately, the media turns to those who reinforce the narrative they wish to promote. What goes unmentioned by the media are the twin facts that, under the US system of government, federal authorities lack the authority to issue national lockdowns and quarantines, and that lockdowns are ineffective at controlling the disease once community spread has set in. Of the top 10 worst-hit nations in the world by per-capita deaths (of which the US is not in the list), over half have engaged in multiple long-term national lockdowns. And many of those nations which earlier avoided substantial outbreaks are now seeing them. All news below from November 9th, 4 days ago:

"Hungary’s prime minister announced a new Covid-19 lockdown...
Hungary recorded 5,000 new infections on Monday, the fourth-highest per capita rate in the EU...with 4,150 people were on ventilators, close to the country’s capacity of 4,480 intensive care beds....

Portugal imposed a state of emergency and ordered about 70% of its population to stay home on weekday nights from 11pm to 5am for the next two weeks – and to only leave the house at the weekend in the mornings until 1pm, unless to buy essentials.

Italy – where more than 41,000 people have now died – the situation there was becoming unmanageable. The government last week imposed a countrywide night curfew as well as tougher measures in four regions, closing most shops, bars and restaurants and restricting residents’ movements. “I am afraid there is no doubt that the situation is largely out of control,” Massimo Galli, the head of the infectious diseases department at Sacco hospital, said...

Spain announces new state of emergency as COVID infections soar....

Russia registered a record number of new infections on Monday, with cases in Moscow surpassing a previous high set in May...."

 

[bviktor]

There are many bad antigen tests, yes. That doesn't mean there are ONLY bad antigen tests out there. NADAL's specificity is 99.9% and its sensitivity is 97.56%.

https://www.nadal-test.com/en/antigen

Musk should either take GOOD antigen tests, or wait a couple hours for PCR results, but in any case should shut the hell up instead of pushing his stupid narrative regarding this virus.

 

[quadibloc]

Medical tests have false positives and false negatives. That doesn't make them worthless, it makes them imperfect. In any case, since he has a positive test, if he doesn't self-isolate, he may end up being locked up by the State of California. Which is generally an appropriate thing to happen to people who think they're above the law.

 

[Endymio]

Musk should either take GOOD antigen tests, or wait a couple hours for PCR results

Unless you're in one of the rare sites that has PCR equipment onsite, the test is going to take days, not hours. And recent studies have shown its accuracy to be considerably lower than once thought:

False Negative Tests for SARS-CoV-2 Infection — Challenges and Implications

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'm not willing to take a covid19 test at all. So I will never be a guinea pig to find out how inaccurate they are. Musk took the test, so he has more faith in pharmaceutical science than I do.

 

[ColdSoup]

If you can take four tests in a day and two come back with different results, yeah it's a pretty bad test.

 

[sdms96825]

On a per capita basis, the top nations by Covid deaths are:

1. Belgium
2. Peru
3. Spain
4. Brazil
5. Chile
6. Argentina
7. Bolivia
8. Mexico
9. United Kingdom
10. Ecuador
11. Moldava
12. United States
13. Italy
14. Columbia
15. France

Of those top 15 nations, there are only 2 that will count a death as due to Covid without requiring an actual positive Covid test: Belgium (#1) and the U.S. (#12). The U.S. also does not require a formal certification that Covid was the primary cause of death, rather than simply a factor.

Isn't the primary cause of death in every case due to the heart stopping?

 

[sdms96825]

My neighbor, who coincidentally works for SpaceX, tested positive even though she did not show up to her appointment for the test.

Proof?

 

[Ludak021]

Musk should then spend some resources on making his own 15 minute test that is in the above 90% range for accuracy. ORRRR he could just take the test they are doing in India... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54338864

well, he didn't make one because he expected covid-19 to end in April. Doesn't mean he doesn't have one in the making now (or not)...

 

[Endymio]

Musk should then spend some resources on making his own 15 minute test that is in the above 90% range for accuracy. ORRRR he could just take the test they are doing in India... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54338864

Except that they're not doing that test (Feluda) in India, or anywhere else yet. As of last week at least, it still wasn't available even to medical professionals. As for the Nadal test, it's not available to the general public. People seem to think that you can walk into a doctor's office, and choose from a menu of every test the media has written a story on. It doesn't work that way. You take the test your doctor offers.

 

[Gomos]

Of the top 10 worst-hit nations in the world by per-capita deaths (of which the US is not in the list)

Well, I see it exactly in 10th position right now, 8th if you exclude tiny nations and on a trend to reach 4th position in the coming weeks.

 

[Endymio]

Well, I see it exactly in 10th position right now, 8th if you exclude tiny nations and on a trend to reach 4th position in the coming weeks.

You're looking at old data. As of November 13, the US is still in 12th, and the trend line is downward, not upward. France and Italy (just below the US at present) are seeing 2 and 3 times as many deaths in the last 7 days, whereas the Czech Republic (at #20) is seeing eight times as many.

 

[Ozmiz]

I took a test for Covid-19 in June.

Around the first of October I got a call and was told "you tested positive for Covid, and you need to quarantine".

 

[Gomos]

You're looking at old data. As of November 13, the US is still in 12th, and the trend line is downward, not upward. France and Italy (just below the US at present) are seeing 2 and 3 times as many deaths in the last 7 days, whereas the Czech Republic (at #20) is seeing eight times as many.

I am not looking at old data, actually I was looking at data from 14th of November. The reason it is 12th in your source is that it has a very wrong value for Moldova's population and several other countries don't have their latest population data updated either.

France and Italy deaths are 2.43 and 2.33 times higher, yes, but they are also still behind and in a very different trend of cases. Italy will likely pass US in the following days, but likely US will pass it again after that. Czech Republic was out of control a few weeks ago but now under a strong lockdown.

7-day average of cases in US has had a 2.4 fold increase over the last 3 weeks. This is the amount of weeks death were trailing cases in the mid-June wave. So compare US with Italy and France in 3 weeks time.

 

[Endymio]

The reason it is 12th in your source is that it has a very wrong value for Moldova's population

Incorrect. They use the official World Bank numbers. Some other sites still include Transnitria in Moldava's population -- but since deaths in that breakaway Republic aren't counted as part of Moldova's Covid-19 statistics, the population shouldn't be either.

France and Italy deaths are 2.43 and 2.33 times higher, yes, but they are also still behind and in a very different trend of cases.

By some independent estimates, Italy has failed to count half the Covid deaths they've actually received, due to their hospital system being overwhelmed and many fatalities simply being buried without testing.

In any case, there are 33 total nations with a higher 7-day death count than the US. Many of those will invariably pass the US in cumulative counts. It's obvious you wish to use cumulative figures when it makes the US look bad, but then switch to 7-day trends when it doesn't. Choose one or the other: in neither case is the US the worst nation, nor even in the top 10.

 

[Gomos]

Incorrect. They use the official World Bank numbers. Some other sites still include Transnitria in Moldava's population -- but since deaths in that breakaway Republic aren't counted as part of Moldova's Covid-19 statistics, the population shouldn't be either.

By some independent estimates, Italy has failed to count half the Covid deaths they've actually received, due to their hospital system being overwhelmed and many fatalities simply being buried without testing.

In any case, there are 33 total nations with a higher 7-day death count than the US. Many of those will invariably pass the US in cumulative counts. It's obvious you wish to use cumulative figures when it makes the US look bad, but then switch to 7-day trends when it doesn't. Choose one or the other: in neither case is the US the worst nation, nor even in the top 10.

Ok, I didn't know about Transnistria; that is clear then.

Italy didn't fail to count half the deaths, worst estimates for the first wave say +50% of official count (34K vs 52K of excess deaths https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries). I see nowhere this +100% that you claim. And the CDC reports a very similar difference between official count and excess death in US: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

I don't get the whole thing about switching from daily average to cumulative to make US look bad. If the first is in a huge upward trend (inevitable due to the increase in cases), the cumulative will increase faster too...

Check again that 33rd position in a few weeks, because most of those above are either downwards, stable or increasing slower than US.

 

[Justausername]

"Positive Cases" is a terrible metric. If we treated this like any other medical condition we would not be testing people without reason. We would also be treating people who test positive when they are symptomatic because they are actually sick. Testing asymptomatic people, calling them a "case", and then sending them home without treatment, tells you all you need to know about worried doctors are about positive tests.

 

[Norsiiii]

Implying that COVID is less serious than the flu makes your post rather disingenuous.

It wasn't implying anything, it was a very straightforward expression of objective fact. However, if that was the inference that you read as a natural consequence of the fact, then wouldn't you say that's rather telling...?