Italians over 80 'will be left to die' as country overwhelmed by coronavirus.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/ita ... 25436.html

This is getting insane!

It's false !

Thank you dinasset. There are too many rumours going around and we need people who know the truth to tell us what is really going on.

Agree with Erisian - Thanks dinasset.

This pandemic is a 'perfect storm'. Nobody knows if recovering from it gives you immunity.
People have had it, then recovered and then tested positive again.

Panic is the virus.

I believe the test indicates the antibodies for the COVID-19. So people that recover should stll have the antibodies and will test positive. That doesn't mean they will be ill or can infect others. Obviously I'm not a doctor, but that's my prognosis.

Yeah, maybe a business paper is not the place to get medical advice This was written by Bruce Lee?

'Testing negative' could be about 'viral load' like with HIV?
They definitely say some people tested positive then negative then positive.

This is more scientifically informative

Reading about viruses at this level is like reading computer code

Ghost Rider2?

Tas_mania - talking of negative/positive/negative and 'like reading computer code' ... hopefully that computer code would still be easier to read than the binary memory dumps I had to work through in the late 60s

There are two main tests in use.
Reverse-transcription polymerase and Serology testing.

"The Center of Disease Control (CDC) has developed a real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction for diagnostic purposes."

"Serology testing, leverages ELISA antibody test kits to detect the presence of antibodies produced by the host immune system against the virus. The CDC runs two ELISA tests against two different proteins produced by the virus."
"Since antibodies continue to circulate even after the infection is cleared, serology tests continue to be positive for individuals who have been previously exposed and developed an immune response, which means a positive test may not indicate an active infection."

For the true geeks on GC including OMG
The Stanford test uses a technique called reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, or RT-PCR, to rapidly identify the presence of viral RNA in swabs from the noses of potentially infected people. RT-PCR uses short stretches of DNA called primers that bind tightly and specifically only to matching sequences in SARS-CoV-2 RNA. An enzyme called reverse transcriptase then converts the viral RNA into complementary DNA, and as the reaction continues, an enzyme called polymerase is used to generate billions of DNA copies that can be detected by fluorescently tagged molecules called probes.