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 Originally Posted by OngBonga
They're pretty damn reliable. 99.9% according to the gov.uk website.
Now he trusts the gov't lol.
I'm afraid it's much more complicated than that. There's different tests with different accuracy, and claiming a test is 99.9% accurate can mean a lot of things.
It can mean if you have no symptoms and no covid it will say - 99.9% of the time.
It can mean if you have symptoms and covid it will say + 99.9% of the time.
It can mean if you have no symptoms but still have covid it will say + 99.9% of the time.
It can mean if you have symptoms but don't have covid it will say - 99.9% of the time.
If you are infected, the accuracy of the test will also vary depending on how long ago you were infected, even if you have no symptoms.
There's also the baseline infection rate to consider. If a test is given to 1000 people, none of which have either symptoms or covid, and 1/1000 of the results is +, it truly is 99.9% accurate in that respect. That's still only one of the four scenarios. But if the same test is given to 1000 people, 10 of which have covid, but none of which have symptoms, and it only tests + for one of them, it's really only 10% accurate.
If it accounts for baseline infection rates, and does all four of the above scenarios equally accurately, that is really 99.9% accuracy, if it only does one but not the other three, it's not. If it doesn't account for baseline infection rates, it's also not. The rapid tests the gov't are giving away are claimed to be 99.9% accurate at reporting - when you have no symptoms. That's only one of the four possibilites. So I suspect they are being a bit optimistic about all of the other scenarios there as a way to encourage people to test.
According to this article, the false negative rate is >50% for most rapid tests.
https://www.healthline.com/health/ho...accurate-is-it
That means if you come to my house after testing negative, but you have covid, about half the time you will be able to show me a negative test at the same time as you're spreading your little covids all over my house.
Testing is not a substitute for vaccination in terms of protecting oneself and others. It's not even close.
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Whop are you to determine if my reason for not vaccinating is valid? Even mojo acknowledges we don't know the long term effects of vaccination.
There's no reason to think there will be any long-term effects, and the short-term effect of keeping you and others from getting sick or dying would outweigh them even if there were. It's dead virus cells and some harmless other things like buffering agents they're injecting into you. Dead viruses don't mutliply - so no-one ever died from a dead virus. Some people might be allergic to the buffering agents, but you tend to find that out pretty quick, not years later.
If people were dropping from MMR or polio or smallpox or tetanus vaxxes down the line you might have a point. They aren't. These people who make vaccines know what the fuck they're doing, they're not going around playing Dr. Mengele with you.
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