04-20-2020, 08:47 PM
After taking some time to learn about this Stanford study, I literally cringed when learning about it. IOW, burger is right. Stanford should be embarrassed to be associated with this study.
First of all, when Stanford announced it had developed its own antibody test, I assumed it was solid and reliable. Turns out they didn’t use their own test for all of this study. They bought other kits from a Minnesota lab that bought its kits from China. So the test kits used in the study can’t be verified for accuracy by Stanford. Worse, Denmark researchers concluded the test Stanford used was the least accurate of all 9 they tested.
In the paper it says if the tests aren’t at least 98% accurate, their conclusions about IFR aren’t reliable and go down to less than 1% of population infected. The Denmark analysis found the tests only 87% accurate!
How the hell can any university, let alone Stanford roll out research results with such unreliable testing regimes, let alone claim such broad conclusions about infection rate from it? And we know the sample itself can’t be considered random because they advertised people to come get tests on Facebook FFS. Those people who came for the test absolutely were going to have reason to have thunk they were exposed.
Again, when it sunk in just how bad this was, my perception of Stanford went down a notch. It’s really unfortunate that this one terribly conceived study is going to hurt the Stanford brand, but it absolutely will, because it’s visibility and stakes are so damn high.
First of all, when Stanford announced it had developed its own antibody test, I assumed it was solid and reliable. Turns out they didn’t use their own test for all of this study. They bought other kits from a Minnesota lab that bought its kits from China. So the test kits used in the study can’t be verified for accuracy by Stanford. Worse, Denmark researchers concluded the test Stanford used was the least accurate of all 9 they tested.
In the paper it says if the tests aren’t at least 98% accurate, their conclusions about IFR aren’t reliable and go down to less than 1% of population infected. The Denmark analysis found the tests only 87% accurate!
How the hell can any university, let alone Stanford roll out research results with such unreliable testing regimes, let alone claim such broad conclusions about infection rate from it? And we know the sample itself can’t be considered random because they advertised people to come get tests on Facebook FFS. Those people who came for the test absolutely were going to have reason to have thunk they were exposed.
Again, when it sunk in just how bad this was, my perception of Stanford went down a notch. It’s really unfortunate that this one terribly conceived study is going to hurt the Stanford brand, but it absolutely will, because it’s visibility and stakes are so damn high.