PM's Office staff who had tested positive for Covid-19 cleared of infection

By THE NATION

 

 

Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House who had earlier tested positive for Covid-19 via rapid test were ruled as not infected after swab test, a senior official said.

 

 

Government House had performed random screening of its 700 staff on Friday afternoon. The six positive results came from the first batch of 350 staff whose saliva was tested with rapid test kits. The second batch will be tested on Monday.

 

“The six staffers were ruled as carrying no risk, but were told to work from home for the peace of mind of their colleagues,” Nuttreeya Thaweewong, director at Office of Spokesman, Secretariat of the Prime Minister, said on Friday evening.

 

Related Story: Government House on alert after 6 officials test positive

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30400262

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-12-26

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

1 minute ago, rooster59 said:

PM's Office staff who had tested positive for Covid-19 cleared of infection

By THE NATION

 

 

Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House who had earlier tested positive for Covid-19 via rapid test were ruled as not infected after swab test, a senior official said.

 

 

Government House had performed random screening of its 700 staff on Friday afternoon. The six positive results came from the first batch of 350 staff whose saliva was tested with rapid test kits. The second batch will be tested on Monday.

 

“The six staffers were ruled as carrying no risk, but were told to work from home for the peace of mind of their colleagues,” Nuttreeya Thaweewong, director at Office of Spokesman, Secretariat of the Prime Minister, said on Friday evening.

 

Related Story: Government House on alert after 6 officials test positive

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30400262

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-12-26

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

Well I never expected that.. amazing Thailand...????

8 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House who had earlier tested positive for Covid-19 via rapid test were ruled as not infected after swab test

does this new rapid test yield false negatives as well as false positives ?

9 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

but were told to work from home for the peace of mind of their colleagues

Can't really trust that second test or what? 

Amazing Thailand, last week it was a MASSIVE drugs find, then it wasnt, now government workers test positive, now their not, i smell serious BS.

Why they dont send them to hospital while tourist and their citizens must undergo quarantine in hospital !

20 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

does this new rapid test yield false negatives as well as false positives ?

Yes. (PCR also can give false negatives, especially earl;y in infection,  but rapid test even more so).

 

 

21 minutes ago, RotBenz8888 said:

Can't really trust that second test or what? 

 

More likely the fear factor on part of coworkers

 

The second test will have  been RT-PCR. 

25 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Amazing Thailand, last week it was a MASSIVE drugs find, then it wasnt, now government workers test positive, now their not, i smell serious BS.

 

They tested 300 people which gave a false positive consistent with every other countries data with these tests.

6 people or 2%.

 

If they wanted to BS they would not have released the six positive cases right. But they have been very open and as I said on the other thread I hoped that they would be false positives.

 

i am sure it will disappoint some of the Anti Thai crowd, but I am very relieved and happy and am hopeful they will successfully beat this outbreak similar to what they did in March/April. We don’t want covid in Thailand do we?
 

What I am more interested in at this stage is the new UK strain than is currently now unfortunately being spread around the world and why the Brits, Spain and the Netherlands are hiding their “active cases” and “total recovered” stats that every other country is openly and transparently reporting? What are they hiding? Another strain? 
 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Natai Beach

A post using a disallowed reference to the PM as well as trolling about Mr. Trump has been removed. 

1 minute ago, Sheryl said:

 

More likely the fear factor on part of coworkers

 

The second test will have  been RT-PCR. 

But if a doctor says they are 100% cleared and could go back to work, wouldn't that bring more piece of mind to the coworkers? 

14 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

Yes. (PCR also can give false negatives, especially earl;y in infection,  but rapid test even more so).

 

 

 

Yes, especially rapid saliva tests.

 

The rapid blood tests are much better, but still significant error rate.

 

...and agree is the first 4-5 days after PCR test infection are highly inaccurate.

the so called UK strain is not a "UK" Strain - it was found across Europe as far back as Sept I have read

10 minutes ago, Natai Beach said:

What I am more interested in at this stage is the new UK strain than is currently now unfortunately being spread around the world and why the Brits, Spain and the Netherlands are hiding their “active cases” and “total recovered” stats that every other country is openly and transparently reporting? What are they hiding? Another strain? 
 

I agree, that new strain is more worrying, it could result in Thailand shutting the boarders completely again, not even allowing spouses and parents to get in. 

1 hour ago, RotBenz8888 said:

I agree, that new strain is more worrying, it could result in Thailand shutting the boarders completely again, not even allowing spouses and parents to get in. 

I've been stuck outside Thailand from my wife and child for 8 months as the hoops wont work for me. Mywife and child are safe and I have money for them.

I imagine if Thailand is shut for another year to tourism, things are going to get financially far worse for Thais than this years 'blip'

1 hour ago, RotBenz8888 said:

But if a doctor says they are 100% cleared and could go back to work, wouldn't that bring more piece of mind to the coworkers? 

 

It is hard to influence attitudes. In both directions.... either to calm peopel down or get them more concerned.  People tend to react in a gut levcel and to be fairly impervious to efforts to sway them. Policy makers and governments in some countries are having difficulty getting people to take the risk seriously while  in other countries (esp SE Asia) they can't get people to not panic and excessively overreact.

 

Remember the highly publicized incident in Rayong? One lone infected person, wearing a mask, went to a mall. People cancelled reservation to anywhere in the province and there were reports of people who from Rayong but now living elsewhere being stigmatized. A massive overreaction by the Thai public.

Please tell me all of the tests that have been used over the past few weeks have not been saliva rapid tests. Lie to me, please.

34 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

It is hard to influence attitudes. In both directions.... either to calm peopel down or get them more concerned.  People tend to react in a gut levcel and to be fairly impervious to efforts to sway them. Policy makers and governments in some countries are having difficulty getting people to take the risk seriously while  in other countries (esp SE Asia) they can't get people to not panic and excessively overreact.

 

Remember the highly publicized incident in Rayong? One lone infected person, wearing a mask, went to a mall. People cancelled reservation to anywhere in the province and there were reports of people who from Rayong but now living elsewhere being stigmatized. A massive overreaction by the Thai public.

Good points. And unfortunately, there's a risk for those 6 to be stigmatized either way. 

3 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The six positive results came from the first batch of 350 staff whose saliva was tested with rapid test kits. The second batch will be tested on Monday.

Learned something new today:

The collective noun for "officials" is "batch".

A flock of sheep, a gaggle of geese and a batch of officials. 

3 hours ago, Natai Beach said:

 

What I am more interested in at this stage is the new UK strain than is currently now unfortunately being spread around the world and why the Brits, Spain and the Netherlands are hiding their “active cases” and “total recovered” stats that every other country is openly and transparently reporting? What are they hiding? Another strain?

 

Yea but it's not about Britain or Spain or Holland .. the article is about the now " apparent " non positive results of tests of those possibly infected in the P M's office in Gov house .. which is in Thailand .. but for reasons that should be fairly apparent that would not project the correct image so a way had to be found of reversing yesterday's negative scenario and voila today they have submitted it with the sudden " no they haven't got it claim " ..

5 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House who had earlier tested positive for Covid-19 via rapid test were ruled as not infected after swab test, a senior official said.

But get 14 days off for Xmas?

5 hours ago, smedly said:

the so called UK strain is not a "UK" Strain - it was found across Europe as far back as Sept I have read

 

yeah, but we made it famous!

 

rule britannia!!

 

 

16 hours ago, Natai Beach said:

 

What I am more interested in at this stage is the new UK strain than is currently now unfortunately being spread around the world and why the Brits, Spain and the Netherlands are hiding their “active cases” and “total recovered” stats that every other country is openly and transparently reporting? What are they hiding? Another strain?

 

 

UK, unlike Thailand, is not hiding anything.

 

As far as Thailand is concerned the only COVID cases are those in hospital, so.....

 

Equivalents in the UK, Dec 22, COVID Patients, "Active" :

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

 

Thailands "Total Recovered" is a contrived (in the sense that the vast majority of individuals with COVID are guaranteed to "recover") irrelevant, "feel good" category.

 

The sort of category that the Thai State is really, really fond of.

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Enoon

A post using a trolling image has been removed. 

20 hours ago, rooster59 said:

“The six staffers were ruled as carrying no risk, but were told to work from home for the peace of mind of their colleagues,”

Sounds like the Prayute ordered the virus to an inactive post and to understand the no infection rule.

19 hours ago, Sheryl said:

 

More likely the fear factor on part of coworkers

 

The second test will have  been RT-PCR. 

Do they test all the negatives again to see if any were false negs?If all six of the first false positives and only the six were wrong and have been corrected or ruled as false positive so the rapid tests are declared useless by this case.Either way it doesn't look like good clean health management but rather not so clean numbers management. 

17 hours ago, dcnx said:

Please tell me all of the tests that have been used over the past few weeks have not been saliva rapid tests. Lie to me, please.

As 6 out of 320 is exactly the false positive level for rapid antigen tests, I suspect they are just learning about them.

 

PM: God, I could get COVID. "Prawit, test the staff, quickly!" 

 

"Right boss. I'll time it, just watch me."

 

A batch one official then discovers fast antigen tests on the Internet.

16 hours ago, rabas said:

As 6 out of 320 is exactly the false positive level for rapid antigen tests,

The positive predictive value of those tests is 0.98. That means they are 98% sure a positive test is positive, right?

 

 

6 hours ago, dcnx said:

The positive predictive value of those tests is 0.98. That means they are 98% sure a positive test is positive, right?

Yes in this case. I assumed no one had covid.  There are two aspects to consider about testing accuracy.  The test itself, and testing a population with an unknown level of covid.  

 

Specificity measures how well the test works. In my example, test 100 people without covid and you get two false positives. 

 

Positive predictive value, PPV, measures the accuracy when testing a population and can vary with the level of covid cases.   The US FDA here explains:

• A test with 98% specificity would have a PPV of just over 80% in a population with 10% prevalence, meaning 20 out of 100 positive results would be false positives.
• The same test would only have a PPV of approximately 30% in a population with 1% prevalence, meaning 70 out of 100 positive results would be false positives. 

Medical experts know this very well.  Thus we know a batch of ministers are not medical experts.