KY couple get ankle bracelets for violating quarantine rules

[gaius]

The only non government roadblocks or checkpoints that have gone up since Covid started are the ones at the Native American reservations up in South Dakota. And they're not denying passage as far as I know. More like directing people not to stop in the reservation if they don't have essential business there.

@major_merrick unless you have some sort of news article or citation to back up your claim I think we can say counties shutting down roads and refusing people entry is not part of the coronavirus response in the US. If it was it would have gotten media attention by now, just like the situation in South Dakota.

It's interesting what people who don't live in the south will believe about it though. I'm in all parts of Alabama and Georgia on a regular basis and I've never heard or seen such a thing.

[Happy Lemming]

9 hours ago, gaius said:

The only non government roadblocks or checkpoints that have gone up since Covid started are the ones at the Native American reservations up in South Dakota.

 

Technically, the Native American reservations are sovereign nations and not actually US territory.  They write their own laws and govern themselves.

I worked with a Native American community and their tribal council (which is their form of government)  It was a unique and educational experience.

 

[sothereiwas]

11 hours ago, major_merrick said:

@Shining One Assuming you are referring to my county's roadblocks, I would say that keeping non-residents with no legitimate business OUT is quite different from keeping residents IN.

That's an actual violation of the highest law of the land, the constitution. 

 

12 hours ago, major_merrick said:

Since the tests are not reliable, I'd say it is definitely an overreach.

In what way are they not reliable? I thought they had a tendency to fail to detect, I was unaware of a large tendency to false positive. 

[SumGuy]

Just a point of science, when talking about test reliability you really need to talk about the false positive and false negative rates, these are two totally different things.

The false positive rate for most of the tests is very small.  The test for live virus has a very, very low false positive rate.

When people talk about "unreliable" in the news it is because many of the tests have a high false negative rate, especially the closer one gets tested near the date of infection.  That is if I get infected on day 1, but get tested then next day...the false negative rate is very high, well over 50%.

This should not be surprising at all and especially if the test is anything less than a blood draw.  It takes time for the virus to replicate enough to be detectable in your mucus or saliva for example.

In short, if you test positive the odds are very high the test is accurate and you are infected.

However, if you test negative the odds are non-trivial that you could well still be infected.

[SumGuy]

13 hours ago, gaius said:

The only non government roadblocks or checkpoints that have gone up since Covid started are the ones at the Native American reservations up in South Dakota. And they're not denying passage as far as I know. More like directing people not to stop in the reservation if they don't have essential business there.

Heck that is pretty nice of them, as they are a sovereign nation it would be perfectly within their rights to deny any entry to the reservation.  

[Shining One]

15 hours ago, major_merrick said:

Assuming you are referring to my county's roadblocks, I would say that keeping non-residents with no legitimate business OUT is quite different from keeping residents IN.

They are both actions taken by government to limit freedom of movement to public spaces. Perhaps both are necessary to combat this pandemic, but I consider quarantining those who tested positive as less draconian than blockading those who haven't even tested positive.

14 hours ago, gaius said:

I think we can say counties shutting down roads and refusing people entry is not part of the coronavirus response in the US. If it was it would have gotten media attention by now, just like the situation in South Dakota.

Dare County, North Carolina has been blocking visitors. They were even blocking non-resident homeowners. There are lot of vacation homes and summer rental properties there. You're right though, it's not a "standard" component of the response and is limited to a select few areas, for now.

[major_merrick]

12 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

That's an actual violation of the highest law of the land, the constitution. 

In what way are they not reliable? I thought they had a tendency to fail to detect, I was unaware of a large tendency to false positive. 

As for the roadblocks...lets not derail this thread.  We can always start a separate one. 

For the tests....they have a tendency to indicate false positive, and the medical establishment stands to gain from accepting false positive results, as per the linked examples in my previous post.  And the powers-that-be stand to gain from keeping this whole thing going as long as possible.  They are absolutely LOVING all the new things they get to do. 

Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's chief of staff, famously said in 2008, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. I mean, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”  Sums up the authoritarian perspective quite nicely. 

[Kitty Tantrum]

Which test did they do? Anyone know off the top?

Mostly just curious, as there are problems with both tests:

Antibody test detects RECENT illness - not necessarily current illness, AND is also not specific enough; even the CDC acknowledges that you can test positive on a "COVID-19 antibody test" if you have recently had the common cold (or anything else in the same family - any human coronavirus, basically).

PCR test is very sensitive and can detect viral debris without there ever having been an infection - plus since this virus has never been properly isolated, might ostensibly flag positive for other viruses in the same family (basically, they had to build it off of existing stuff, is the gist of it as far as I'm able to wrap my head around it at present).

I'm very skeptical of the tests and all the hype/policy they're being used to drive.

Masks are fine. Quarantining sick people is fine.

But for a crowd that's been screaming "SCIENCE" at everyone this whole time, uhhhh... hate to break it to you, but these tests SUCK, and in the absence of a detectable illness mean about diddly squat.

Unless there's more to this story - and I am quite open to that possibility, as it seems there is very little news in this arena that isn't being "spun" somehow - I'd say this is a pretty clear case of overreach.

I'm too lazy to go digging right now, but my gut says the "more" could simply be that these conditions were laid out prior to the testing process somehow and that if these folks really didn't want the gubmint all up in their bidness, they could have simply not been tested. Would not put it past them to have done this for attention. That's how cynical I am.

[basil67]

The science is evolving.  That's what science does.  We don't go into scientific investigation with full knowledge, rather we start at the beginning, we share early discoveries and keep improving as we learn more.   I am not trained in medicine or science, so I trust the medicos because they know more than I do.   But I am also aware that they too know only as much as what the most recent science is.   The alternative is trusting conspiracy theorists and I'm not doing that route. 

Testing has been working well in countries outside of the US.  Because numbers of cases where I am are small, testing has given us the ability to track and trace....and it works.   Sure, there could be a few fails, but they are so rare that people aren't concerned.   

[QuietRiot]

5 hours ago, basil67 said:

The science is evolving.  That's what science does.  We don't go into scientific investigation with full knowledge, rather we start at the beginning, we share early discoveries and keep improving as we learn more.   I am not trained in medicine or science, so I trust the medicos because they know more than I do.   But I am also aware that they too know only as much as what the most recent science is.   The alternative is trusting conspiracy theorists and I'm not doing that route. 

Testing has been working well in countries outside of the US.  Because numbers of cases where I am are small, testing has given us the ability to track and trace....and it works.   Sure, there could be a few fails, but they are so rare that people aren't concerned.   

This best explains how this all works. To jump the gun and just dismiss testing as a total failure is rather ignorant. You should know (you in general) that's how science works. It's a developing situation right now and to go after testing as if it were a complete failure is silly.

Kind of how anti-maskers hang on to one article they find that confirms their bias and shares that same article, from the same source countless times. Like when they found a click-baity article where a one-off situation of a person that wore a mask and caught it anyway....and then shares it multiple times on social media.

They are like, "SEE SEE, wearing masks don't work, see see!"

Or they are grabbing at straws to find some kind of lame explanation for the real reason is that they don't want to wear a mask because having it on their face bugs them, looks weird to them,  or is an inconvenience. 

Edited July 22, 2020 by QuietRiot

[sothereiwas]

6 hours ago, basil67 said:

Testing has been working well

From a cursory search I did a few days back it seems like the prevalent failure mode for the common tests is to false negative, or in plain terms fail to detect that an infected person is infected. This happens up to about 1/3 of the time according to some sources. The test I could find that is being scrutinized for excessive false positives has a false positive rate around 3%, according to the FDA sources I could find. That's unacceptable according to the FDA, but it's a lot less than 1 in 3, so it seems, from a quick look, that false positives are a problem of limited scope and magnitude. 

[Kitty Tantrum]

6 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

It's a developing situation right now and to go after testing as if it were a complete failure is silly.

That's just a disingenuous presentation of the opposing argument.

There's this HUGE, VAST SPACE in between "tests are complete failure" and "tests results are sound basis for locking people up."

If there is any legitimacy to putting these two on house arrest, it's because they likely agreed to those terms by getting tested in the first place.

Trying to use "SCIENCE!" to justify this particular case doesn't work well. By all accounts I've seen, these folks weren't sick. A positive test result in the absence of symptoms SHOULD be heavily scrutinized, given that we KNOW there is a high margin for error. The CDC, the WHO, and every person/entity who has worked on developing these testing methods have already acknowledged that. This is not speculation or conjecture.

The science itself is not enough to justify this.

And saying "well the science is still evolving but it might prove to have been adequate justification when we're done figuring it out months from now" doesn't really fly either.

This is much more the arena of legalism and technicality.

And you can't go TOO far with that justification either... because if you want to lock up every asymptomatic person who flags positive on a test (some because they literally had the common cold a while ago), just because you CAN, because whatever policies were rushed through legislation or handed down by executive fiat allow for it... that's just too many people.

If you're worried about this virus, you should be outraged that pandemic-management resources would be frittered away on tracking and restricting the movement of healthy people based on contact tracing/test results alone.

I'm thinking this couple is just being used as an "example." But I honestly can't even decide which "side" they make a better example for. I have a very hard time believing they didn't refuse to sign the paperwork knowing full well that this would be the result. But I can't tell whether this angle is supposed to help foster compliance or dissidence, or if they just really wanted 15 minutes of fame and saw a way to get it.

[sothereiwas]

10 hours ago, Kitty Tantrum said:

given that we KNOW there is a high margin for error.

The figures I've seen for false positive rate were around 3% for the worst, and according to the FDA, unacceptable, tests. The false negative rate is reportedly much worse but that rate wouldn't apply here. If the false positive rate is much higher I'd like to know. 

[QuietRiot]

6 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

The figures I've seen for false positive rate were around 3% for the worst, and according to the FDA, unacceptable, tests. The false negative rate is reportedly much worse but that rate wouldn't apply here. If the false positive rate is much higher I'd like to know. 

Okay well, this just in...I suppose we can lay this argument to rest

That according to Dr. Robert Redfield of the CDC -  ‘Our best estimate right now is that for every case that's reported, there actually are 10 other infections’ (Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC)

So yeah, we are way off what is currently recorded.

 

[sothereiwas]

2 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

I suppose we can lay this argument to rest - ‘Our best estimate right now is that for every case that's reported, there actually are 10 other infections’ 

I don't see how missed cases have any applicability to the potential for uninfected people to be mistakenly quarantined, so no, not put to rest as far as I can see. 

 

[Kitty Tantrum]

13 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

The figures I've seen for false positive rate were around 3% for the worst, and according to the FDA, unacceptable, tests. The false negative rate is reportedly much worse but that rate wouldn't apply here. If the false positive rate is much higher I'd like to know. 

There's a lot in the presentation of these figures that gets overlooked, though.

For example: I'm open to being corrected, but as far as I understand it, a clinical "false positive" in the above context (FDA reporting) would be a test that flags positive when there is absolutely NOTHING to detect.

A COVID-19 false positive, specifically, would include the much larger percentage of tests that are flagging positive for something that is NOT actually the specific novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Edit to add: or the tests that detect a past minor infection, or viral debris from a non-infection - which are then conflated with "person being positive for COVID-19 == CONTAGEOUS! DANGER!" - lol wrong)

Two TOTALLY different kinds of errors, and there's really no way yet to measure the scope of the latter.

As I mentioned above, the fact that the virus has still never been properly isolated means that the tests are based in part on old material; old viruses.

That doesn't mean the tests are absolutely worthless, no. They would still be useful for big-picture analysis, AND for diagnosing sick people.

But a positive test result alone, absent any detectable symptoms of illness, being the grounds for what amounts to imprisonment is going a bit far in my estimation.

Like I've said before, I've gone rounds with doctors over testing of all different varieties over the years, and all the way up until this pandemic, the story has always been that because of the way tests work, and because of the way contagions work, tests have to be considered in the context of symptoms. I've always been told that false positives are usually (as in, for most tests) more common than false negatives, for a huge variety of reasons.

That people are so comfortable with this huge body of practical knowledge, established over decades of medical sciencing, being chucked out the window in favor of a model which basically dresses "better safe than sorry" up in a "SCIENCE POPE" hat and calls on the Powers-That-Be to smite anybody who questions it... is rather disturbing.

IT IS OKAY TO BE BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

But conflating "better safe than sorry" with "Science!" is one very effective way to build superstitions.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Kitty Tantrum

[sothereiwas]

2 minutes ago, Kitty Tantrum said:

a clinical "false positive" in the above context (FDA reporting) would be a test that flags positive when there is absolutely NOTHING to detect.

I believe it is any positive result when the test subject is not actually infected with the target pathogen, for instance it appeared that one of the large suspected root causes was that the test in question was prone to lab-induced errors if the lab in question wasn't extremely careful and properly trained in processing the materials. 

 

8 minutes ago, Kitty Tantrum said:

But a positive test result alone, absent any detectable symptoms of illness, being the grounds for what amounts to imprisonment is going a bit far in my estimation.

I would be OK with it being a basis for temporary quarantine pending onset of symptoms or a positive retest. The odds of multiple consecutive false positives ... pretty slim.

[Ellener]

On 7/20/2020 at 1:16 PM, CAPSLOCK BANDIT said:

In China, they don't give you an ankle bracelet, they drag you out of your home and force you into a van

I don't think many Americans will agree to living that method of dealing with people. Let's see how it turns out in Portland.

I know people think I am, what was it Ellener from OshKosh liberal hippie and I probably am, but a lot of things are changing right now. A lot of people are frightened.

Where I live a lot of us are starting to question the US federal government, our local government is who we can rely on.

But if they start slapping ankle bracelets on people questions will be asked. Those restrictions are meant for criminals not sick people.

It's the natural outcome of a country which routinely abuses and rips off the sick I guess.

[serial muse]

On 7/19/2020 at 6:31 PM, QuietRiot said:

Not sure if you've seen this already, but it's blowing up the net. When a Kentucky couple refused to sign quarantine papers because the wife tested positive (symptom free), cops showed up on their front door step and they were forced to wear ankle bracelets.

Think this is an over reach?

No, because there were no ankle bracelets. She appears to have made that up, for reasons of her own. 

 http://www.k105.com/2020/07/20/hardin-co-sheriff-denies-placing-ankle-monitors-on-radcliff-couple-who-refused-to-sign-isolation-order/

There is very likely a lot more here than is public. Per the Hardin County sheriff (letter posted at above link): "The Hardin County Sheriff's Office did not install location monitoring devices on anyone in Hardin County. We have no open cases, nor have we had any cases, involving the enforcement of a failure to isolate for positive COVID-19 testing.”

The sheriff's letter also notes that the court action that led to the delivery of the Notices to Isolate and Quarantine is confidential, so they can't say anything else without a court order. One wonders what else they might have to say...

 

 

[QuietRiot]

9 hours ago, serial muse said:

No, because there were no ankle bracelets. She appears to have made that up, for reasons of her own. 

 http://www.k105.com/2020/07/20/hardin-co-sheriff-denies-placing-ankle-monitors-on-radcliff-couple-who-refused-to-sign-isolation-order/

There is very likely a lot more here than is public. Per the Hardin County sheriff (letter posted at above link): "The Hardin County Sheriff's Office did not install location monitoring devices on anyone in Hardin County. We have no open cases, nor have we had any cases, involving the enforcement of a failure to isolate for positive COVID-19 testing.”

The sheriff's letter also notes that the court action that led to the delivery of the Notices to Isolate and Quarantine is confidential, so they can't say anything else without a court order. One wonders what else they might have to say...

 

 

and there it is. It comes out.