I’m concerned about this one as advice. I think it’s fine to say it’s a likelihood ratio of 20x against, but the in presence of severe fever, cough, and difficulty breathing, I think a person should still place non-negligible probability on it being COVID-19 notwithstanding having had a runny nose at some point. I’m worried people about hearing the “runny nose != COVID” updating too hard that they don’t have it. 1 in 20 people isn’t that rare.
I think it’s more reasonable to say that if you don’t have fever and do have runny nose, the odds are probably in your favor, but the runny nose alone shouldn’t be an overriding diagnostic consideration.
I have a lot of uncertainty when hearing the 5% runny nose figure from data. Things like: 1) how did they define runny nose, maybe their cut off is much more stringent? If the paper defines this, it isn’t getting passed along. 2) It’s possible that different strains/mutations of coronavirus elicit different symptoms? I don’t know enough to judge how likely that is. Same for whether different populations might present differently. 3) Allergies might cause runny nose independently of COVID-19.
I’m concerned about this one as advice. I think it’s fine to say it’s a likelihood ratio of 20x against, but the in presence of severe fever, cough, and difficulty breathing, I think a person should still place non-negligible probability on it being COVID-19 notwithstanding having had a runny nose at some point. I’m worried people about hearing the “runny nose != COVID” updating too hard that they don’t have it. 1 in 20 people isn’t that rare.
I think it’s more reasonable to say that if you don’t have fever and do have runny nose, the odds are probably in your favor, but the runny nose alone shouldn’t be an overriding diagnostic consideration.
Some additional thoughts:
I have a lot of uncertainty when hearing the 5% runny nose figure from data. Things like:
1) how did they define runny nose, maybe their cut off is much more stringent? If the paper defines this, it isn’t getting passed along.
2) It’s possible that different strains/mutations of coronavirus elicit different symptoms? I don’t know enough to judge how likely that is. Same for whether different populations might present differently.
3) Allergies might cause runny nose independently of COVID-19.
You’re right, I changed it.