1. They don’t care about the negative cases! They only count the positive cases!

2. Everyone would test if we didn’t need to wait on line for hours
   Especially with young children its impossible
   We need many more testing sites

   • um so actually there are a bunch of testing sites that have been open the past few days with very minimal if any wait at all so… good excuse… there are a bunch of pop up testing sites there was one by blue claws, one by clifton and 10th, bikur cholim had one… all these did not have any long wait times at all. not sure if there are more locations or if these are still going on but yeah… please go test yourself thanks

3. Great idea…more ppl test negative and lower the percentage of positive.
   However WHO WANTS TO WAIT ON LINE FOR 4 HOURS!?!??!
   Open more testing places with more stations so we dont need to wait with large families of small children.

4. Why would someone need to get tested if they don’t have symptoms?

   • TO LOWER THE POSITIVITY RATE!!!!!!

5. Can someone explain this to me? Who are we trying to fool? People are getting sick by the hundreds and thousands. Why do we not care about that?

6. Stop testing for 2 weeks if you have symptoms just stay home. What to you gain by testing? If nobody test for 2 weeks the # will go down. The Gov. showed that it hates Lakewood why give them more amo ?

7. The only valid point here is the one about the long lines.

   But to the other folks, listen to the message again:

   The point is that if people without symptoms test, the negativity numbers will even out the positivity numbers.

   Since the only ones testing until now were people with symptoms that’s why the numbers are so high.

   This ain’t rocket science.

8. This is a trap!!!!!

9. If more people test and get negative results then instead of 100% positive results we will have 50% positive or 25%positive. Its all in the math.

10. The best way to get numbers down is to STOP TESTING! The more you test, the more false positives come up (dead cells come up positive MANY times). Asymptomatic people will also come up positive. This is a government scam to close everything down. PLEASE! If the case is mild, you don’t need to test. If its severe, get treated anyway (as a precaution, prophylactic). If you MUST test (i.e. high risk patient) then only 1 person per family should test. Time will tell that sadly this is the truth.

11. Can someone please share who the rabbanim in this irgun are? Thank you

12. @Sure @True it’s better to wait on line for hours now than be home with your kids the next 2 weeks.

13. Sorry but they are not counting the proportion of positive tests to negative ones. When we are given a percentage of positivity rate, it’s telling us the percentage of people within a given region who were positive. So if let’s say a region like ocean county had 100 people and 3 tested positive that day, there would be a 3% positivity rate, that is regardless of whether the other 97% all tested negative or didn’t test at all. The same is by zip code. They will look at what percentage of people within that zip code tested positive. So the only real way to bring down the percentage is to have the truly positive people not test….which is counterproductive to anyone with symptoms who needs to be treated. No doctor that I know will treat you for covid without a reliable test result

    • Pretty sure this is wrong – the positivity rate was up to 30% for Lakewod, there’s no way 35k or so people tested positive, or even tested at all for that matter.

    • where did you get this information from? its clearly wrong. it means % of tests that are actually positive and does not take population into account. The positivity rate in lakewood was almost 30% based on people who tested. do you think 30% of people in lakewood have coronvirus??!!

      google “what is coronvirus positivity rate” and you will see that your info is incorrect. unfortunately, it looks like TLS does not allow pasting a link from John Hopkins School of Public Health where they explain the rate and what the point of increased testing is. Too bad there is less focus on the other thing that’s necessary in a place with a high positivity rate – increasing restrictions to slow the rate of transmission.

    • SB, you are misinformed. That’s not what positive rate means.

14. Two anonymous 10:39pm you obviously did not read the article please refresh your browser and check again

15. To SB at 12:21am
    That is factually incorrect. Positivity rate is percent of positive tests out of all tests that were taken.

    This is elementary but if you need proof, just look at the numbers.
    How many people tested positive in past week? 500? How many people live in Lakewood, 100,000? That obviously wouldn’t lead to a 27% positivity rate.
    (These numbers I wrote are made up but you get the point)

16. The goal of testing, (or not testing), should be to prevent spreading the disease, disability to the affected people, hospitalizations including people in the ICU on ventilators and RL, possible death. I personally know of a shul in my neighborhood that after Rosh Hashanah multiple members of the Shul and members of their families were hospitalized due to COVID-19, while many others from the shul were sick at home. I find it hard to believe that anyone in a position of power would advocate testing to avoid a situation like in NY instead for the health of our community.
    Yes, wear masks- to avoid sickness! Yes, test in order to save lives and avoid the spread of the unprecedented, contagious, and in many cases lethal virus! ושמרתם מאוד
    Yes, wear masks regardless of antibodies because people are getting infected twice. Save your life, the lives of your family, the lives of your friends! Gut moed

17. This will absolutely drive up the numbers which is what they want so they could have an excuse to shut you down. Do your research about PCR testing, false negatives, etc. Sadly, time will show that I am right (not that I want to be). the only way to lower numbers is to stop testing or at least only test one person per family of sick people, or only test very severe patients. there are other treatments that are VERY effective and you do not need the DOCTORS!

18. I wonder if the Rabbonim understand the whole situation. “The only way to lower the positivity rate is that everyone should test.”
    This is the only way?! There are other ways to lower the rate-either take precautions and stop it from spreading or stop testing altogether. Other regions have lowered the positivity rate without having everyone test.

19. This is nuts.
    Why can’t they explain to him to compare the positives against the Twsp population ??!! Explain to him, slowly, that only the sick are testing. Everyone else is healthy, B”H.
    To send everyone to test is a massive waste of time and money.

20. In response to SB regarding the positive rate and how that metric is calculated – you are incorrect. The positive rate is the percentage of positive results from all Covid tests administered

21. @SB

    Your comment definitely sounded very logical but can u also pls post a link or website to corroborate your statement.
    If true, then a lot of people are wasting a lot of time for nothing

    Thank you

22. @SB

    I just googled positivity rate and it does seem to be a factor of how many people are testing so according to that it would seem that the more negative test results there are, the lower the positivity rate

    Be guided accordingly

23. I assume what SB says is correct. Otherwise the “positivity rate” doesn’t really mean anything.

    But the larger problem is that this message from the Iggud is so wrongminded.

    What it is saying that we should purposely dilute our positivity numbers so the government will think we are less infected than we are.

    What is the goal here?!

    The goal should be to continue to stay open with a high measure of health and safety.

    Let’s urge safe practices (masking, yeshivas with capsule programs, more sparsely populated gatherings).

    The goal should not be to mislead our government officials.

24. Sorry I don’t trust the government to rule out our testing results. They only have their own agenda in mind. Getting tested gives them the best way of closing our schools and shuls. Be smart and don’t listen to these messages.

25. Does anyone have a doctor to ask this question of?

    See page 39 of this FDA document that says, “Since no qualified virus isolates of the 2019-nCov are currently available….” What does this mean? What are the PCR tests testing for to determine that a person has specifically Covid-19? Thank you
    fda.gov/media/1349221/download

26. SB, though your intuition makes sense,in fact, positivity rate is determined by positive tests divided by total tests.

27. There’s something I’m not understanding. Who are we to make cheshbonos if we should or shouldn’t test. BH we have Rabbonim that have made it clear what we should be doing so we put our thoughts aside and we do what they say!

28. i was at chemed when they tested over a thousand people on tuesday. i was there from 2:20 PM until 7:00 PM. the most incredible part of being there was that, despite hundreds of kinderlach, i did not witness a single breakdown of any of them. chemed provided umbrellas and water as needed, but the most amazing thing was how well the parents took care of their children. there was plenty of place for the kids to run around. kudos to all of you and to the chemed staff. also, there were all kinds of lakewood residents there and everyone abided by the rules and cooperated. at about 6:30, chemed ran out of some testing materials. there was a 15-20 minute wait until the supply was replenished and no one, especially the exhausted nurses, practitioners etc. complained. we all just waited patiently. how come no one else noticed this?

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