scrubbedexpat141

Think in context, there will be a spike at the moment given the teachers are all being tested yesterday / today for the return to school next week. That's a HUGE number of tests being conducted.

csdf

True, but the authorities don't seem to be acknowledging that as a major cause of concern. Instead, they have very vocally (this week) been telling people to stop ignoring social distancing rules and pointed to social media posts of overcrowded hotel pools etc. Today I had to visit Immigration (in Abu Dhabi) and now they require a negative covid test before they'll even let you in the building. These all hint that there are some proper concerns about the numbers.

scrubbedexpat141

Interesting. They've obviously decided the laser test isn't good enough for the border eh.

The issue I have with testing is that it's only good for that minute. Once it's done it's semi-redundant. I mean, the mrs was in a queue with no marked distancing and a pen and pad of post-its was passed between EVERYONE with no sanitizer or hand washing etc.....at a testing centre.

Surely anyone who goes for a test should be tested for it now and tested to see if they've had it?

csdf

Testing is good for longer than a minute. Let's assume that 1000 people have the virus in the UAE at any one time (500 they catch through testing - hence the current daily positive rates, 500 roam free undetected). So you have a 500/9500000 chance of meeting one of these people, max. Now, I don't know about you but I personally don't typically meet 9.5 million people in a typical day, so the chance of me contracting the virus, the day after I've tested negative, is massively lower than 500 in 9.5million. Sure, ratchet it up by 2, 3 10 days if you like, but the odds are still excellent that if I've tested negative, I'm going to stay negative for a considerable period of time, even if I completely ignore all social distancing and hygiene measures.

Millhouse

so, taking your logic... as I don't have it - I'm free to meet anyone I like and ignore all social distancing... if that's the case, how did this thing start and we end up in lockdown? You're better than that.

The reality is that the numbers are low, and globally it's still running behind my favourite way to die: car crashes.

The test is certainly only valid for a day, and that ignores the 100% false positive rate of newly acquired (up to 24h) positives.

Irishbeekeeper

So....are we getting a second wave in UAE or not??

Millhouse

the only thing the armchair and professional epidemiologists agree on is that they don’t know the answer to that question.

nonthaburi

Yep. Not seen my family in nearly 8 months now. And everyone else in the company is in the same boat . Gonna be interesting how it plays out because there's less and less time left of the contract year and no one has taken any vacation yet. Things keep on going on like this and there won't be the time available for everyone to take all their vacation. Really short-staffed at the moment too.

csdf

You're trolling, right? There's no way you don't get the maths on this. We're talking about population statistics. If the chance of testing positive is 500 out of 9.5mm, then every day 500 out of 9.5mm will test positive. For those that caught it, their chances of being positive were 100%, for everyone else it was zero, but on a population level it was 500 in 9.5mm (0.005%). The UAE's first case was on the 29th of January, 212 days ago. We have had 68511 cases since then, or an average of 323 per day. Out of a population of 9.5mm, that gives you an average population probability of testing positive of 0.003% on any given day. Some people with high risk jobs (or attitudes) will have much higher chances of getting it, others lower, but the average is inescapable.

A negative test is valid for much longer than a day unless you have an incredibly pessimistic view of the chance of catching the disease. We've already seen that over the entire pandemic, the chance of testing positive in the UAE has been 0.003% on any given day. Let's be generous, and assume that the actual probability is 3 times higher (to account for false negatives and whatever else you want to throw in). So the probability of testing positive is now 0.009% in a given day. Hell, I'll be generous and multiply that by 100. Your chances of testing positive on any particularly day are now 0.9%. On day 0, you test negative. Over the next 24 hours you have a 0.9% chance of catching it. You'd have to wait a long time (many days) before the cumulative probability of catching it was high enough that you would consider the test void. Certainly more than the 92 hours that airlines are requiring. Now obviously some individuals will catch a virus within hours of testing negative, but the vast vast majority of people won't, nor will they for many many days afterwards. On average, a negative test is valid for multiple days at least, if not weeks.

I'll throw in a bonus way of looking at it. Currently there are about 7000 active cases. Let's assume (against all evidence, and just for the purpose of being incredibly generous) that a) they're all roaming freely around the country and b) they are only a third of the "true" cases, so there's actually 21,000 active cases roaming around. Assuming they are distributed uniformly around the country, then you have a 21000 in 9.5mm chance of bumping into one of these people every time you "meet" someone during the day. Let's further assume that they are perfectly infectious, so if you meet them you're guaranteed to catch the virus. So your chances of catching the virus from any single person you meet are 0.22%, meaning you'd have to meet 45 people a day before your personal chances of catching the virus that day were above 10%. So even under these incredibly unlikely assumptions, you'd have to really try hard to make your negative test result become invalid in a week, let alone a single day.

Millhouse

You still seem to be arguing for opening up, when usually you are in the camp of keeping everything closed and maximum security.

The chances of testing positive might well be 500/9.5m, but that is a function of the tests. The chances of becoming positive in any given day is certainly not 500/9.5m as it is impossible that the tests capture all the newly infected people in any given day. That’s a fact regardless of how big the sampling is.

Given that I don’t have it today, the chances of me catching it or not tomorrow is completely unrelated to if I’ve taken a test today to prove that I don’t have it. That’s why the test is only good for the day... with the accuracy made worse by the delay in getting the results (and the 100% false-negative rate for newly acquired cases) - indeed, I could catch it on day 1, get a negative result three days later and be as sick as a dog.

I want to open up and I’m pleased we are taking steps in that direction. I have a feeling that local lockdowns will come though.

scrubbedexpat141

I think we're discussing different things.

Testing is good for as long as you're in the test centre. As soon as you leave (and let's pretend you get an immediate 'clear' result) you are now touching things, meeting people, being coughed on and running a covid gauntlet in exiting the location with the most infected people.

On the way out you brush past someone with Covid who's going to find out if their cold is a cold or if they've got the germ. You get infected. 2 days later you get told you're clean but you're in the process of getting sick, but you can't have it? You got the all clear? You go out, you party, you do what you want....which is why I say it'a bit pointless. If people were tested to see if they'd had it, it might be of more interest if the thinking is still correct that you get it once and fight it off, you're probably good.

weasel decentral

As a pure probability exercise it can't be the case that your status yesterday resets your statistical chances of testing positive to same odds today. If I tested positive yesterday would this also be the case?

Millhouse

Correct, but is really in the margins, unless you make a couple of wrongful assumptions: 1) those testing positive in a day are then completely removed from the dataset and didn’t infect anyone along the way, and 2) the tests capture everyone in any given day and 3) there are no false negatives. None of that is true, or can easily be quantified.

co durham boy

The next month will be a good tester . The schools are back and we'll see how the teachers behave when they're bladdered on a weekend and hanging out of each others hoops .

scrubbedexpat141

I quoted you before but realised I never replied.

Lots in your situation and it's really, really tough. We're seeing a few just jack it in and go....a few kicking off they want to be remote and a few just cracking mentally. Most are coping but the lack of information and light at the end of the tunnel in KSA is really harming things.

People aren't interested in being paid out their holiday, they aren't interested in time off in KSA, they just want to go home and see their kids and know they won't get ****ed and left there jobless because they can't get back in.

Come to Xmas and if the borders aren't open it's going to be a blood bath.