Posts Tagged ‘covid testing’
PCR Tests “Whoops, our bad! We’ll fix that.”
The Law of Truly Large Numbers says, there are no coincidences.
A month ago I shared information gleaned from the CDC and Jon Rappaport, an investigative journalist who has done the deepest dive into the COVID-19 data of anyone I’ve encountered to date.
Rappaport has made some startling and controversial claims in his blog, but he has always provided source citations and often uses the “words of the experts” to incriminate the experts. The information I shared previously explained flaws in the PCR tests, how it was administered, and how it had no apparent standard. The result was millions of positive “cases” over the past year even when a majority of those cases (people) never experienced a symptom.
Where this became a serious problem was with regard to state governments basing their covid lockdown policies and mandates on case numbers. The rights and freedoms of Americans in all 50 states were severely restricted and in some cases stripped completely. When journalists or physicians questioned the tests, they were ignored or silenced. It became politically incorrect to question the authorities, because, for heaven sakes people were dying! How could anyone be so cold hearted and question those who were just trying to save lives?
But every American life was being grossly effected by government edicts based on bad data from tests that were being grossly mishandled. As a side note and in a twist of irony, all other leading forms of death in the US in 2020 decreased while COVID deaths filled the gaps. A study published by Johns Hopkins University made this astonishing discovery. It was so astonishing and controversial that Johns Hopkins retracted it almost as soon as it was published, but not before the cat was out of the bag and a fleeting moment of transparency exposed the narrative again.
Now to the “coincidence” which occurred this month on the very day the new president of the United States officially took office. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a little-noticed technical report that calls into question many of the policies that we have adopted to control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At the heart of all the data on COVID-19 cases is the, you guessed it, PCR tests.
According to The Hill, “the WHO’s guidance on the RT-PCR test emphasizes two things that have long been known in the scientific literature and public health practice but inexplicably ignored in COVID policy for almost a year. First, they point out that a positive COVID test does not necessarily mean that someone has any capacity of infecting someone else with the virus. Therefore, it instructs laboratories to report a key statistic that indicates how likely a positive test result actually constitutes infectious COVID-19. And second, the WHO warns against relying on a single test for patients without clinical COVID-19 symptoms.”
Observation #1: This is a contradiction to the daily narrative repeated by the media throughout 2020. Yes, they briefly discussed a problem with false positive tests, but quickly made it appear they were not a problem and “new tests” were better and false positives were rare. This wasn’t true, but it’s what people came to believe and even defend and governments continued to use case numbers, not the number of infections but the number of cases (positive tests), to continue their lockdowns and mandates.
The report goes on to say, “the PCR test is not designed to identify active infectious disease but rather genetic material (dead, alive or partial) from the virus. PCR amplifies this material in samples to find traces of COVID-19, so while it often identifies people with active, infectious disease, it can also indicate people as “positive” erroneously. Dead COVID-19 RNA in the nose or mouth of someone who was never sick could create a positive PCR result. Recovered patients who test negative and are non-infectious can still come up positive repeatedly in the following months. These are neither new cases nor infectious ones needing quarantine but could be incorrectly counted as such.”
Are you listening governors?
Continuing, the report indicates “multiple studies showing that the number of amplification or duplication “cycles” performed via PCR to amplify the sample has a relationship with infectiousness – at a certain point, the more cycles needed to get positivity from a sample the generally less viral replication the sample shows.” In plain English this means the more cycles the more positives. Meaningless positives. “An article in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that among positive PCR samples with a cycle count over 35 – a common lab occurrence – only 3 percent of samples showed viral replication.” This really tells us that the high number of daily cases was due to bad testing, but no one will admit it.
Observation #2: In my previous article Case vs Infection – The COVID Con I discuss the problem with the cycles used in the PCR tests and how there didn’t seem to be any real standard. Here’s a portion of that report.
The PCR test is run in “cycles.” Each cycle is a quantum leap in amplifying or magnifying the original tiny, tiny piece of material taken from the patient’s swab sample. It’s like blowing up a small photo to an amazing size.
The question is: how many cycles should the PCR test be run at? This is vital issue, because the number of cycles changes the result.
July 16, 2020, podcast, “This Week in Virology” [1]: Tony Fauci makes a point of saying the PCR COVID test is useless and misleading when the test is run at “35 cycles or higher.” A positive result, indicating infection, cannot be accepted or believed.
Here, in techno-speak, is an excerpt from Fauci’s key quote (starting at about the 4-minute mark [1]): “…If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent [aka accurate] are miniscule…you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive result] from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…”
Too many cycles, and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant.
That’s called a false positive.
Here’s the kicker. The FDA, which authorizes the test for public use, was recommending the test be run at 40 cycles. Uhhh, Houston, we have a problem.
The lapdog media was quick to jump to the rescue and make sure we all understood the WHO wasn’t admitting the testing was flawed or giving misleading numbers of cases, they were just making sure the test was being correctly administered with a “standard.” The Associated Press and Politifact and the social media fact checkers were quick to place their spin on the report to make sure NO ONE attempted to use this new information to demean or refute the media’s long held narratives. Politifact headline: “WHO did not say PCR tests grossly inflate positive test numbers.” Well, not in those words perhaps, therefore they can say that claim is FALSE.
The Hill concludes, “The questionable quality of COVID-19 testing data, alongside loose COVID-19 case definitions, means we cannot effectively work to build an efficient, effective system to address the disease at the individual or community level. Data that are available now are inadequate to inform local and statewide policymakers, business owners, school administrators and the public at large. As we collectively understand trends in infectiousness and fine tune our testing system, we can act more effectively and efficiently, and reduce disruption to people’s lives, schools and businesses.”
Translation: Now that Trump is gone we can be honest and use the PCR tests as intended and with the proper number of cycles which will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of positive tests (cases) allowing governors to stop shredding the constitution and giving Joe Biden credit for defeating the evil China Virus…whoops that term has been banned…I mean, evil COVID-19 and bringing freedom back to the Democracy by way of Executive Order. Or something like that.
Coincidence?
Case vs Infection – The COVID Con
Every state in the union is enforcing some sort of lockdown or restriction of its people due to “extremely high case counts” for COVID-19.
I have explained many times in social media posts and discussions with people I know how the case count alone is a meaningless metric and basing government policy decisions on this statistic alone is an example of profound ignorance at best and malicious intent at worst.
Jon Rappaport, an investigative journalist who has written articles on politics, health, media, culture and art for LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, Village Voice, Nexus, CBS Healthwatch, and reported on major television news networks over the past 30 years, has decided to take a deep dive into the COVID-19 data, the way its been reported by the media, and the confusion surrounding the pandemic since it was first announced.
Here are some of his findings as posted on his personal website, where he clearly cites credible sources including official sources such as the CDC, WHO, and NIH.
The lockdowns are based on high levels of COVID cases.
“We have so many new cases, we have to lock down.”
This claim is based on the diagnostic PCR test.
The more tests you do, the more positive results come up. A positive result is taken to mean: the person is infected with the virus.
But overwhelmingly, these so-called “infected” people have no symptoms. They are healthy. Nevertheless, each one is called a “COVID case.” This is absurd.
A case should mean the person has clinical symptoms; he is sick.
These people aren’t sick, and there is no indication they will get sick.
So…expand testing, test millions of people, obtain results claiming “infection,” call all these healthy people “cases,” and order lock downs.
IS THE PCR TEST DECEPTIVE?
You need one piece of background here.
The PCR test is run in “cycles.” Each cycle is a quantum leap in amplifying or magnifying the original tiny, tiny piece of material taken from the patient’s swab sample. It’s like blowing up a small photo to an amazing size.
The question is: how many cycles should the PCR test be run at? This is vital issue, because the number of cycles changes the result.
July 16, 2020, podcast, “This Week in Virology” [1]: Tony Fauci makes a point of saying the PCR COVID test is useless and misleading when the test is run at “35 cycles or higher.” A positive result, indicating infection, cannot be accepted or believed.
Here, in techno-speak, is an excerpt from Fauci’s key quote (starting at about the 4-minute mark [1]): “…If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent [aka accurate] are miniscule…you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive result] from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…”
Too many cycles, and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant.
That’s called a false positive.
What Fauci failed to say on the video is: the FDA, which authorizes the test for public use, recommends the test should be run up to 40 cycles. Not 35.
Therefore, all labs in the US that follow the FDA guideline are knowingly or unknowingly participating in fraud. Fraud on a monstrous level, because…
Millions of Americans are being told they are infected with the virus on the basis of a false positive result, and…
The total number of COVID cases in America—which is based on the test—is a gross falsity.
The lockdowns and other restraining measures are based on these fraudulent case numbers.
Let me back up and run that by you again. Fauci says the test is useless when it’s run at 35 cycles or higher. The FDA says run the test up to 40 cycles, in order to determine whether the virus is there.
See the problem?
On December 3, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Florida state Department of Health announced that they are requiring labs to report number of PCR test cycles in all COVID tests. Rappaport continues:
COVID testing labs never tell doctors or patients how the PCR test is run.
This means the number of cycles is a secret.
A cycle is a step up in amplification of the tissue sample taken from the patient.
As even Tony Fauci has asserted, tests run at 35 cycles or above are useless. They’re also misleading. The results tend to be positive, meaning the patient is “infected with the virus.” But this is false.
However, as I’ve also reported, the CDC and the FDA recommend that the test should be run at up to 40 cycles.[2] [3] This is a direct hustle. It ensures false positives and higher COVID case numbers—used as justification for lockdowns.
Now, the state of Florida is doing something unheard of. It’s demanding that labs report the “cycle threshold” for every test they run.
Here is the relevant wording in a release from the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the state Department of Health, dated December 3, 2020 [4]:
“Cycle threshold (CT) values and their reference ranges, as applicable, must be reported by laboratories to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately.”
“If your laboratory is not currently reporting CT values and their reference ranges, the lab should begin reporting this information to FDOH within seven days of the date of this memorandum.”
We can assume there is only one reason for this order. The Florida governor and the Department of Health are aware that tests run at 35 cycles or higher are useless and misleading, and they want to stop this crime.
Imagine what happens if the trend of “new COVID cases” in Florida soon takes a sudden dip and keeps on falling—because labs are finally telling the truth. Because their deceptive test results are being rejected. The con will be exposed.
And imagine other states following Florida’s example.
People can’t make good choices for themselves, their families, or their communities if they are uninformed or misinformed. The politicization of COVID, the use of it to restrict the freedoms of American citizens, and the division it has and is creating is, in my opinion, being done with malicious intent by powers within America and beyond our borders who wish for global dominance and rule and see the United States as the one obstacle in their path.
Standing for truth isn’t always easy or popular, in fact it’s more often neither, but we are beyond the time for complacence. It’s time to choose where you’ll stand, but do so on verifiable trusted sources of information.
Hint: It isn’t in the established media of old.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Vy6fgaBPE
[3] https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[4] https://www.flhealthsource.gov/files/Laboratory-Reporting-CT-Values-12032020.pdf
The Long Version 