Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's wife Sophie tests positive for coronavirus | Hacker News Reader

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's wife Sophie tests positive for coronavirus

reuters.com

78 pointspseudolus40 comments

Earlier version of story was already on front page:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22558859

This development shows that she was tested positive. The earlier article was just highlighting the risk.

I have a feeling, the reason why we are now hearing politicians, celebrities etc. being infected is probably because they are getting tested anyway. Symptoms or not. They either have the money to do it or they are in important positions and are prioritized.

Which could mean that the actual number of infections truly is much much higher than we know and therefore the fatality rate could also be significantly lower than what has been estimated so far.

I'm not a medical professional at all. Just guessing.

I have a question. Do we test all death? What if many death are not tested for coronavirus hence the death number is not accurate either?

The US doesn't. A few flu/pneumonia tests were done on dead people and turned out positive but that's it.

I’m a medical professional and I think you’re right.

There are medical professionals I know who are quarantined with obvious COVID (or H1N1) symptoms but not tested because they don’t fit the requirements. It matters because if it’s just H1N1 they can be back in action sooner.

Not saying we shouldn’t test famous people, just saying we should expand that type of testing much more broadly.

Where do you work that medical professionals with ILI symptoms don't meet screening criteria?

Oh, to be clear - the person with symptoms hasn’t had patient contact in a long time. But the fact that they can’t get tested causes another asymptomatic person who does have very heavy patient contact to be quarantined for 14 days.

Politicians travel around the world to shake hands with one another and bring crowds together.

Or at least they used to until recently.

> ... because they are getting tested anyway. Symptoms or not

Not in this case.

> Trudeau will also stay in isolation for 14 days, but on the advice of his doctors, will not be tested because he has no symptoms.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid19-trudeau-premiers-co...

They live together and are currently together. This has to mean he has been exposed.

Only a matter of time I suppose until he tests positive. I wish them both a speedy recovery.

I wish them fast recovery too.

"Also on the advice of doctors, he will not be tested at this stage since he has no symptoms. For the same reason, doctors say there is no risk to those who have been in contact with him recently."

…but isn’t it asymptomatic?

He's also putting himself in 14 day self quarantine, for those skimming comments

Sounds crazy. He and Trump should be both tested and given vitamin C, D, and zinc.

Just go easy on the vitamin A, he seems to have plenty of that.

But they aren’t testing him at the moment. They’re waiting until he shows symptoms?

Maybe he won’t show symptoms but still be contagious?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why wait for symptoms? Why not test him anyway? Is there any downside to testing? If not, then seems outrageous not to test the PM whose wife has recently tested positive.

Not enough tests to go around? So preserve them for who needs them.

The test may be more likely to be a false negative in the early stages of infection. As a result, it may be better to quarantine people who have been exposed without testing them and only test them after they develop symptoms. Otherwise you may be telling someone who has been exposed and is infected that they're not, and then they don't bother to quarantine themselves and go infect other people.

According to Chinese reports, the body part from which you take samples affect the result pretty significantly. There are people who tested negative multiple times from throat swabs but positive from lung fluid or anal swabs.

Is this peak government dysfunction?

Why would you think this is disfunction? He's acting on advice of a doctor and in any case, it seems to be a wise use of scarce resources. He's in isolation for two weeks so what does it matter? Save the test for someone who needs it.

And Trudeau himself is not being tested: https://twitter.com/CameronAhmad/status/1238281503005642753. I don't understand why some governments seem so averse to testing in general and have really tight constraints around it. In comparison, Bolsonaro had an aid test positive for it and he's being tested with results coming tomorrow: https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1238232367006912514

if you're going to self isolate anyway there's not much point in testing I suppose other than for statistical purposes and at this point my guess would be that testing people on the frontlines is more important.

What "frontlines?" Everywhere are "frontlines" at this point.

healthcare workers, public service workers, food, transportation, pharmaceutical and so on. People who need to definitely know if they are sick or not.

If he tests positive then the self quarantine he is under would expand to his contacts since Sophie returned.

I think US just doesn’t physically have enough tests.

No point in wasting a test on someone you're assuming is and treating as infected.

Who should we test then?

People with symptoms who have had no known contact with the infected, to determine if it's covid-19 or just something else?

Edit: I'm assuming we're talking about in the reality scenario where we don't have the testing capacity to test everyone. If you're not just testing the symptomatic, you're testing everyone who isn't already in the infected set, I don't think the US/Canada is prepared for that.

It's optics. Every Canadian is being told that you won't be tested if you are asymptomatic. If he was to get tested, it shows a disparity in the system.

Was it just me, or did POTUS seem hoarse/out of breath during the address yesterday?

I think this has spread to more people faster than anyone in several governments expected.

He often does. It’s quite an eye opener to watch more of his live addresses and press conferences. When you read a recap of what happened it all sounds vaguely normal and presidential. But when you watch what actually happened you realise how far off the deep end he really is.

How does he do at the rallies ?

I imagine he talks for longer than 10 minutes

He does quite a bit better at rallies. I believe some of these press conferences catch him at times when he is more tired, and the subject matter is also different (less rehearsed, less stump speech-y) and dryer than his rallies so his charisma level seems a bit lower

> When you read a recap of what happened it all sounds vaguely normal and presidential.

Said no one about Trump, ever.

he still tweets memes and his approval ratings, he is fine

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