wrighty

Specificity 99.7%, Sensitivity depends on the time point you offer the test - manufacturers quote 100% at 40 days (I think), but 93% at 14 days. Accuracy is a less well-defined term and depends on how many positive cases and how many negative cases you have. But given those figures above I'd say it's 'very accurate'. The first round of testing is almost complete and results will be made public as soon as the paper has been written up and verified. Individual test results are given out within days - I was negative.

Who do you suggest we test, that we don't currently think need to be tested? There has to be a testing strategy, rather than a free-for-all just to use up the kits. The main reason is that we don't have sufficient people who need to be tested. Which is a good thing, isn't it?

No it isn't. Isolation is the best way to keep covid out of the island. Testing, if carried out at the wrong time, may give false reassurance if negative. And there is no single 'right time' to carry out a test, if asymptomatic. You could argue therefore that testing is irrelevant as you're going to have to isolate anyway.

I don't know if she went across or not, but I'm not sure it would have been a good idea simply to access health services. The UK have been restricted even more than us, even private work has shut down. I have colleagues in the UK who haven't seen a patient face-to-face in months - we've at least carried on here, if reduced capacity.

From inflation to PK’s usual anti-Boris anti-Brexit script in 4 pages. My food bill went down over lockdown. No idea if prices went up or down, but I found myself shopping more sensibly and buying only what I needed. Wasted almost nothing (not that I waste much anyway, but there are those that do). And no eating out.

He/you will need a dish outside - useless without one.

No. Now I’m paid up they’re gone, like you said they would earlier in the thread.

I tried to donate you a satellite receiver a couple of years ago TJ. Do you want it again now?

I’m no longer seeing ads. Sort of miss them

So MF doesn’t actually need any more subscribers right now? What’s the balance in the current account? Perhaps you could use some funds for the volunteer mods to go out for dinner once a year. I’d be happy enough with that.

What’s the subscription cash used for John? I have not subscribed so far because I don’t really see the benefit for me, nor do I understand how critical or otherwise it is that MF gets subscribers. If I’d seen appeals on here along the lines of ‘we need your £20 otherwise we can’t maintain the domain name registration’ or similar I’d have probably chipped in by now. I’m happy to do so now if I have the smallest indication of why it’s better to pay up rather than just randomly setting fire to a Twenty.

Level 2 https://covid19.gov.im/media/1293/isle-of-man-borders-framework-2020-v5.pdf

Trust me, the government and its advisers are looking all over the world to try to determine best practice. I know that we’ve had direct contact with people in Guernsey, Jersey, Singapore and New Zealand.

This is correct - unmitigated, the local R number on a packed plane or boat will be higher than in the wild - but risks can be minimised by mandating mask usage, stricter seating arrangements, accurate recording of seating plans to allow contact tracing etc. It's a very difficult process to get right, which is probably why government aren't just saying 'when the number of cases in the UK is x, we'll move to level y'. It has to be more nuanced than that.

UK's R number is not helpful - it's only an estimate in any case and shows how the infection is likely to grow/recede, rather than the current infective load. More useful, and what is being used, is the UK caseload. ONS yesterday published 1:3900 based on survey data. Daily cases and daily deaths also figure into an overall estimate of the proportion of the UK population currently infected. That can be converted, roughly, to the probability of importing a case here given expected numbers travelling. That probability will never be zero.