New testing method behind sharp increase in Covid-19 cases since March 15

[snoop1130]

New testing method behind sharp increase in Covid-19 cases since March 15

By The Nation

 

 

The sharp increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in Thailand since March 15 is due to the new standards of testing, a Public Health Ministry explained on Tuesday (March 24).

 

Earlier two labs had to show a positive result before a case was confirmed, but now a positive test from one lab is counted as a confirmed case, Assistant. Professor Walailak Chaiyasoot said at the Covid-19 daily report press conference on Tuesday. 

 

She added that the performance of the labs had been enhanced hence one lab test was deemed adequate.

 

A lab in Bangkok can test 10,000 samples for Covid-19 daily and 10,000 samples outside Bangkok.

 

According to statistics, men were more vulnerable to infection than women by a ratio of 2:1.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

As of March 23, the three provinces with the most number of infections were: Bangkok (329), Nonthaburi (47) and Chonburi (30).

 

The transmission rate in the last seven days is a patient in Bangkok could transmit to 3.4 healthy people, while the Songkhla, Yala, and Phuket ratio is 1 patient to 2 people and in other provinces it is 1:1.8.

 

“The global ratio is one patient to two healthy people on average, which means the transmission rate in Bangkok exceeds the global rate. If people strictly follow social distancing, the transmission rate will decrease by 80 per cent,” she said.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30384752

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-03-24

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[GeorgeCross]

so thats why the death rate is so low. could change rapidly if all those young men head back to their home villages and elders. that should be top priority to stop that happening

[Guderian]

Some surprisingly interesting stuff in there.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

Completely different to what we're told should happen, but similar to what's happened in Belgium and The Netherlands. Is it just a case of young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks, and older people being naturally more cautious, or is this a different strain of the virus? That certainly doesn't look like Italy, anyway.

 

I could rattle on about several other things in there , but don't want to bore anyone.

 

 

[smedly]

1 hour ago, Guderian said:

Some surprisingly interesting stuff in there.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

Completely different to what we're told should happen, but similar to what's happened in Belgium and The Netherlands. Is it just a case of young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks, and older people being naturally more cautious, or is this a different strain of the virus? That certainly doesn't look like Italy, anyway.

 

I could rattle on about several other things in there , but don't want to bore anyone.

 

 

more younger people are active - next time you are out and about in Bangkok do a quick survey of young versus old you see as you move around - might surprise you 

[sweatalot]

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

New testing method behind sharp increase in Covid-19 cases since March 15

It's the other way round.

The old testing method in Thailand is behind the unbelievably low number of cases before.

[Metapod]

that says how many tests they can do a day, not how many people are getting tested.

 

i doubt they are testing anywhere close to 10,000 people a day

[Orton Rd]

 

She paid 8k, or her boyfriend did!

Edited March 24, 2020 by Orton Rd

[DrTuner]

I've only been saying this for a couple of months. Anyway, here's some of the relevant links I collected while doing my Sherlock thing:

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/situation.php

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/file/guidelines/G_CPG_en.pdf

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-reference-laboratories-providing-confirmatory-testing-for-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=a03a01e6_2

 

Fairly easy to see where the bottlenecks are. Right now there's yet another one: The admission criteria as PUI doesn't let normal people without pneumonia in. Meaning the average somchai is not included in MoPH stats at all as he can't even get in through the door.

 

Everybody can figure our by themselves why this information was not disclosed before the <deleted> hit the fan.

[DrTuner]

3 hours ago, Guderian said:

Some surprisingly interesting stuff in there.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

Completely different to what we're told should happen, but similar to what's happened in Belgium and The Netherlands. Is it just a case of young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks, and older people being naturally more cautious, or is this a different strain of the virus? That certainly doesn't look like Italy, anyway.

 

I could rattle on about several other things in there , but don't want to bore anyone.

Probably due to the PUI criteria. Older people not tested unless they have pneumonia already. These would be those that had contact with previous cases, i.e. Thonglor and boxing stadium clusters. 

[realfunster]

3 hours ago, Orton Rd said:

 

She paid 8k, or her boyfriend did!

 

Some folks in my office tried to get tested, no symptoms, just out of fear.

They were turned away from numerous hospitals. Great, they should be testing those of concern at this stage. 

For this video, whilst it is mildly informative, I think a minor sore throat is probably insufficient to consider yourself as high risk.

Based on her presentation style she clearly is a frequent and experienced media contributor, so it’s all good stuff and a small price to pay to get the views and Ad revenues on her channel...

[realfunster]

5 hours ago, Guderian said:

Some surprisingly interesting stuff in there.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

Completely different to what we're told should happen, but similar to what's happened in Belgium and The Netherlands. Is it just a case of young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks, and older people being naturally more cautious, or is this a different strain of the virus? That certainly doesn't look like Italy, anyway.

 

I could rattle on about several other things in there , but don't want to bore anyone.

 

 

 

I am not sure that is quite accurate, I haven’t seen any data yet suggesting that younger people are less likely to get infected but clear evidence that infection is a much more serious matter for elderly or those with existing health issues. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by realfunster
Spelling

[Chazar]

9 hours ago, Guderian said:

young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks

its NOT  just the young all ages do that its a cultural sport, had 5  workers  here all sharing the same drinking water cup everyday for 5  days  till they left. 

[Chazar]

6 hours ago, DrTuner said:

I've only been saying this for a couple of months. Anyway, here's some of the relevant links I collected while doing my Sherlock thing:

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/situation.php

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/file/guidelines/G_CPG_en.pdf

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-reference-laboratories-providing-confirmatory-testing-for-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=a03a01e6_2

 

Fairly easy to see where the bottlenecks are. Right now there's yet another one: The admission criteria as PUI doesn't let normal people without pneumonia in. Meaning the average somchai is not included in MoPH stats at all as he can't even get in through the door.

 

Everybody can figure our by themselves why this information was not disclosed before the <deleted> hit the fan.

How "convenient"  on the March 15th date just enough time for the rest of the world who did test  more  so Thailand can claim how  "good" its doing..............wonder what figures  have been for pneumonia deaths  in the last 5  months, now  that WOULD be an interesting figure and would reveal the lies theyve been spouting.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Chazar

[Mung]

I often see the image of viruses depicted as seen in the OP of this thread, although I find the actual image of a virus under an electron microscope a lot cooler. They are in black and white originally, the colour is added in after the fact. 

 

[donnacha]

Extrapolating anything from the official Thai government figures is a waste of time.

They did everything they could to avoid conducting tests and, once forced to take a test, they set this ridiculous barrier of requiring that two labs both get a positive result - if you are getting different results often enough to have a noticeable impact on your overall numbers, wow, there is something seriously wrong with at least one of your labs.

We know what result they actually wanted because any scientifically valid system would count one lab positive and one lab negative as either a confirmed infection or, at the very least, retake the test. Quite deliberately, they counted one positive and one negative as a negative result.

Every single Thai working in the health system knows that the government has been funneling all the cases requiring hospitalization into the stats for pneumonia, hoping to camouflage the outbreak until it had spread to enough other countries to take the attention away from Thailand. It was shameless, it was criminal, but, we have to admit, it worked.

So, forget about the "interesting" age groups they are now claiming have it, forget about comparing their stats with countries who actually tested and reported transparently. The real question is what areas Covid-19 will now suddenly emerge in, and whether those are exactly the same areas that have spent the past 3 months dealing with an unprecedented outbreak of "pneumonia".

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by donnacha

[justin case]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

A lab in Bangkok can test 10,000 samples for Covid-19 daily and 10,000 samples outside Bangkok.

and still they had a backlog of 3000+

 

so how many test kits were wasted in the double dip ?

[hotchilli]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The transmission rate in the last seven days is a patient in Bangkok could transmit to 3.4 healthy people, while the Songkhla, Yala, and Phuket ratio is 1 patient to 2 people and in other provinces it is 1:1.8.

This is from a quote in Italy:

“A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible,” Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Agency, told La Repubblica newspaper, indicating he believed as many as 640,000 people could have been infected in the country.

At the moment they have the highest number of detections and deaths.. however the estimate is that only

1 in 10 have come forward to be tested, making thousands walking around un-treated.

That is really scary!!

[Jimbo2014]

Testing?  We have had Covid19 after our house guest tested positive upon arrival at his destination.  We are waitlisted 5 more days for safe testing, thats 15 days post infection.  Fortunately a relatively mild case.  Seems there is no real access to testing in Bangkok.

[ParkerN]

What a lot of old nonsense.

 

The labs bolloxed it up. Or 2 tests were ordered by some numpty in governmenst because he did not trust the testing labs to get it right.

 

It must have been obvious from the beginning that the numbers were wrong, I knew it and so did many others on TVF. It seems the only thing you can reliably expect from a Thai is still a foul-up. Situation normal.

 

 

[ParkerN]

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

This is from a quote in Italy:

“A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible,” Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Agency, told La Repubblica newspaper, indicating he believed as many as 640,000 people could have been infected in the country.

At the moment they have the highest number of detections and deaths.. however the estimate is that only

1 in 10 have come forward to be tested, making thousands walking around un-treated.

That is really scary!!

 

Indeed it is scary, but not surprising. The same competence and reliability problems exist in Italy that are present in Thailand.

Edited March 25, 2020 by ParkerN

[ParkerN]

3 hours ago, donnacha said:

Every single Thai working in the health system knows that the government has been funneling all the cases requiring hospitalization into the stats for pneumonia, hoping to camouflage the outbreak until it had spread to enough other countries to take the attention away from Thailand. It was shameless, it was criminal, but, we have to admit, it worked.

 

Well, at least it's out in the open now...

 

Criminal certainly but unsurprising to anyone who's lived in TL for more than about 10 minutes. a centre of excellence it is not.

 

[ParkerN]

7 hours ago, Mung said:

I often see the image of viruses depicted as seen in the OP of this thread, although I find the actual image of a virus under an electron microscope a lot cooler. They are in black and white originally, the colour is added in after the fact. 

 

 

 

Ooh. Scary. But not Corona Virus (no corona)

 

Still scary though...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by ParkerN

[Tayaout]

24 minutes ago, ParkerN said:

What a lot of old nonsense.

 

The labs bolloxed it up. Or 2 tests were ordered by some numpty in governmenst because he did not trust the testing labs to get it right.

 

It must have been obvious from the beginning that the numbers were wrong, I knew it and so did many others on TVF. It seems the only thing you can reliably expect from a Thai is still a foul-up. Situation normal.

 

 

As far as I I know many countries use 2 labs. The difference is that they declare them as presumptive case without waiting for the second test result. 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Tayaout

[rabas]

25 minutes ago, ParkerN said:

What a lot of old nonsense.

 

The labs bolloxed it up. Or 2 tests were ordered by some numpty in governmenst because he did not trust the testing labs to get it right.

 

It must have been obvious from the beginning that the numbers were wrong, I knew it and so did many others on TVF. It seems the only thing you can reliably expect from a Thai is still a foul-up. Situation normal.

I beg to differ, Thai are most remarkable. The 2000+ PUI in hospital were reported as 'pending results' for weeks as they were being treated. By state rule they could not return home until testing negative twice, so they were being tested all along. 

 

So they weren't waiting for tests, they were waiting for PUI to recover so they could be reported as negative.

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by rabas

[brain150]

with a "false positive" rate of 50% the test is completely useless !!!

And they don't test for the virus - they test for antibodies ! 

[rabas]

3 minutes ago, brain150 said:

with a "false positive" rate of 50% the test is completely useless !!!

And they don't test for the virus - they test for antibodies ! 

If it is the new testing they announced a a short while back, it is not antibody testing. It's the latest, state of the art CRISPR rna/dna rapid detection from the US MIT and others. It takes 30 to 45 minutes and stands to be a real game changer.

 

Google "CRISPR coronavirus" or "CRISPR COVID-19".

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

16 hours ago, Guderian said:

Some surprisingly interesting stuff in there.

 

Most patients were found in the range of 30-39 years, followed by 20-29 years old.

 

Completely different to what we're told should happen, but similar to what's happened in Belgium and The Netherlands. Is it just a case of young people being stupid and taking silly risks like sharing drinks, and older people being naturally more cautious, or is this a different strain of the virus? That certainly doesn't look like Italy, anyway.

 

I could rattle on about several other things in there , but don't want to bore anyone.

 

 

 

I think there also are two different issues at play:

--one is the rate at which different age groups can become infected with CV.

--the other is the rate at which CV causes serious health problems in different age groups.

 

I'm not sure that younger age cohorts are any less susceptible to being infected with the virus. But the medical opinion and results are pretty clear thus far that older age cohorts are much more likely to have serious health problems once they are infected.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, donnacha said:

Every single Thai working in the health system knows that the government has been funneling all the cases requiring hospitalization into the stats for pneumonia, hoping to camouflage the outbreak until it had spread to enough other countries to take the attention away from Thailand. It was shameless, it was criminal, but, we have to admit, it worked.

 

Except no matter how they class the cases (CV vs pneumonia or whatever), if the outbreak keeps spreading unchecked, the hospital admission numbers are going to continue swelling to the point of being unsustainable. And that's something, ultimately, they won't be able to hide.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

42 minutes ago, ParkerN said:

The labs bolloxed it up. Or 2 tests were ordered by some numpty in governmenst because he did not trust the testing labs to get it right.

 

From the very beginning of this until apparently just recently, the Thai MoPH had as its official policy that confirming lab tests had to be obtained from two DIFFERENT reference labs (not just any labs) before they'd declare someone a "confirmed" case.

 

[sciack]

7 hours ago, Mung said:

I often see the image of viruses depicted as seen in the OP of this thread, although I find the actual image of a virus under an electron microscope a lot cooler. They are in black and white originally, the colour is added in after the fact. 

 

But that’s not a coronavirus