The UK cannot get hold of the antibody tests presently (in any useful quantity) but the reason is not clear. They have been testing various products and have not yet found any which can be deployed in volume and which are reliable. The reliable ones are all “lab” tests which cannot be used on any scale.
I got this from a woman friend
Tigers also can catch Covid-19 apparently.
The Guardian are reporting all the tests we purchased from the Chinese are unreliable – 17.5 million.
Why am I not surprised? I wonder if we really havent paid for them – the Chinese arent renounded for shipping without money – the cynic in me says we will now be trying to get the money back! They arent very good at that either.
I was thinking about the maths. We very roughly know in the UK patient 1 (I mean could take an educated guess within a few weeks perhaps) and it is often reported each person infects 2.4 others left unchecked. Is that assumed to be over a three week window? Two weeks without obvious symptoms, two weeks with, but maybe sufficiently self contained due to the illness not to pass it on for part of the time. With various assumptions some reverse calculations would be interesting as to how closely the assumptions are born out by reality in terms of just how infectious this virus is. I have no doubt these have been done to death and the lack of reliable data would make it difficult to prove one way or another.
Off_Field wrote:
seems as if Germany has a higher number of cases per capita, but lower deaths. I wonder what is the main driver
The main “driver” behind different death ratios is different testing levels, I am sure. While there are some differences to how the health systems are coping, the really big spread across countries is in how many are tested. The official numbers for infected do not have much value, while the numbers of deaths should be reliable, except perhaps for China.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I was thinking about the maths. We very roughly know in the UK patient 1 (I mean could take an educated guess within a few weeks perhaps) and it is often reported each person infects 2.4 others left unchecked. Is that assumed to be over a three week window? Two weeks without obvious symptoms, two weeks with, but maybe sufficiently self contained due to the illness not to pass it on for part of the time. With various assumptions some reverse calculations would be interesting as to how closely the assumptions are born out by reality in terms of just how infectious this virus is. I have no doubt these have been done to death and the lack of reliable data would make it difficult to prove one way or another.
Very difficult to say due to the reported numbers not necessarily reflecting how infectious the virus is. Both under-reporting, under-testing and social distancing skew the numbers.
In the above mentioned briefing, we were told that the R number (number of people infected by a single patient) was now approaching 1 here, instead of the original 2 to 3. That is probably largely thanks to social distancing. If we can keep it at or below 1 for a sufficient time frame, we win…
How infectious it is depends on various factors including absolutely what the population is doing.
If you are alone on a desert island and have some virus, that virus has an R0 of 1. If now 9 people come to your island and you cough at them and infect them all, the same virus now has an R0 of 10 (if I got the definition right).
So what happens in the future depends on how people interact, touch door handles, etc.
If we can keep it at or below 1 for a sufficient time frame, we win…
Exactly. But the virus cannot be modified, so this is really wholly in the hands of the people.
all the tests we purchased from the Chinese are unreliable – 17.5 million.
I’ve been buying production volumes from China for many years. Unless you are very careful, much Chinese stuff you will get is crap, so I am not surprised. But they would have been very cheap 
Tigers also can catch Covid-19 apparently.
Yes and prob99 dogs too, so your dog can get it from somebody else’s dog, and when you kiss it (as dog owners tend to ) you will get it also. Really great.
MedEwok wrote:
but you need both masks and 2 m distance for optimal effect
Important point. It appears that mask wearing alone, while reducing R significantly, does not bring R to below 1 at the current stage, as demonstrated by Japan
Peter wrote:
Yes and prob99 dogs too, so your dog can get it from somebody else’s dog, and when you kiss it (as dog owners tend to ) you will get it also. Really great.
Tests would appear to suggest not. Cats can. Mind you the tests I read were Chinese ones! They did involve very high levels of exposure, so IF they were reliable, they may be fairly idicative.
Peter wrote:
But they would have been very cheap.
It would be interesting to know. When they think they have you over a barrel the price seems to reflect this.MedEwok wrote:
In the above mentioned briefing, we were told that the R number (number of people infected by a single patient) was now approaching 1 here, instead of the original 2 to 3. That is probably largely thanks to social distancing. If we can keep it at or below 1 for a sufficient time frame, we win…
Yes, I was thinking about what the R number really is. I wonder whether in ocuntries which arre heavily testing (Germany) we might be getting a better idea? Also it was said a few days ago that we have tested on a population sampling basis and the results would be known soon. I havent heard any more about this. In theory done properly this could reveal what the real infection rate in the population is. I would have thought this type of research is realtively straight forward and incredibly important in terms of giving is a creditable idea of when we are approach herd immunity levels.
Peter wrote:
If you are alone on a desert island and have some virus, that virus has an R0 of 1.
R0 of 0 surely? If you’re the only one there, it can’t infect anyone else and it will die out (either because you die or it dies).
AIUI, R0 is kind of like gain in a feedback loop. A gain of <1 will mean it’ll die down, a gain of exactly 1 means it’ll remain constant, and a gain of >1 means growth.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I wonder whether in ocuntries which arre heavily testing (Germany) we might be getting a better idea
Norway is well below “1” now according to the latest news (They call it “Re”, for some reason I don’t know. To me Re is something very different ) The number of hospitalized persons stopped abruptly more than a week ago, and is now going down. And it’s all very simple. 2m distance and hygiene. It’s now a problem of how to get back to something resembling normal without “R” running freely again. Lots of other countries are in the same situation, The Czech republic for instance, Slovenia, Iceland, Finland and so on.
Also, how to deal with the Swedish border when they in 2-3 years achieve flock immunity over there 
