Back when I was a "believer" in what was then only known as global warming, I came across a word that changed everything. The word was enhanced as in the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
Without becoming sidetracked with an explanation of this term, I will only say that in coming to understand the science behind it, it led me to one inescapable conclusion, this is bullshit. I spent years letting the so called scientific community try to dissuade me from that conclusion and the more they have tried the larger their pile has grown. This is why I, a once strong believer in institutions of science, am now a confirmed, if sometime frustrated skeptic of these so called experts. It is also why, many years later when I came across another word which seemed not to fit I began anew to study a science, viruses.
The word was sensitivity.
To be honest an actual scientist first put a seed of doubt in my mind about global warming, Ried Bryson, look him up, once observed and I paraphrase, if they find a 1000 year old man under a melting glacier in the Alps, it must have been warmer then than now. That is just plain common sense, which really cannot be disputed. In the case of Covid 19 it was a statement from a Swiss biologist, Beda M Stadler, former Director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern. He said, among other things , that:
"The PCR test with its extreme sensitivity was initially perfect to find out where the virus could be. But this test can not identify whether the virus is still alive, i.e. still infectous."
Consider that statement; a positive test for covid-19 while conclusive that a person has the virus, is no indication that the person is infectious?
Thinking about that rather important factor which I like probably most people had never heard, led me to study up on testing. My research confirmed both the reliability of the test and Stadler's description of the test and the methods used to ensure its accuracy.
These tests are highly specific because they are based on the unique genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2. If a test comes back positive, you can be confident that there was SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in the specimen.
There is a process that the test goes through to multiply a sample in order to find that genetic sequence. This allows for the test to be conclusive as to whether the virus is present in the sample. But what Dr Stadler says is that a positive test does not mean that the virus is alive, infectious. This is supported by the FDA in their description of this type of test in an Emergency Use Authorization for a less accurate type of testing, antigen testing. the FDA says this:
During this pandemic, there have been two types of tests for which the FDA has issued EUAs. One type are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, a molecular diagnostic testing technique that detects the genetic material from the virus and can help diagnose an active COVID-19 infection.
Note that the PCR test is meant to detect genetic "material" from the virus and can "help" diagnose an active infection. It does not say that the test itself determines that there is an active infection. This is in line with what Stadler says:
"So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left. Correct: Even if the infectious viruses are long dead, a corona test can come back positive, because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [to be detected]"
The current position of the "public health" community is that there is no immunity to Covid-19. In the CDC's Pandemic Planning Scenarios they assume that there is no immunity for planning purposes.
No pre-existing immunity before the pandemic began in 2019. It is assumed that all members of the U.S. population were susceptible to infection prior to the pandemic.
Not that they actually know that there is no immunity, that would be highly unusual, only that they do not know. This includes before or after infection. Because they have no studies to prove immunity, they must plan as if there is no immunity.
This reminds me of "enhanced green house effect" type science. That method of science says that despite the fact that there has never been an example in the past for this worst case scenario, to be safe, we must assume one in the future. Whether it be that we must stop burning fossil fuels to "save the planet" or we must shut down society and economies to "save mankind." These are not rational policies to deal with unknown threats. Threats which actually have comparable historical precedents.
Back to Covid-19. If the current testing program does count fragments of the virus which are not contagious as positive, what does this say about the test numbers? As Stadler rightly points out, being immune does not mean you are not infected with the virus, just that your immune system will destroy the virus without it causing you harm. This is not unlike the description of asymptomatic cases. The "silent spreaders" whom nobody quite knows how they spread the virus. Again an assumption from the CDC:
"The relative infectiousness of asymptomatic cases to symptomatic cases remains highly uncertain as asymptomatic cases are difficult to identify and transmission is difficult to observe and quantify. The estimates for relative infectiousness are assumptions based on studies of viral shedding dynamics....the current estimates are an assumption."
Is it possible that "some" asymptomatic Covid-19 cases are people who are simply immune? They test positive because their immunity system has shattered the virus, but fragments still remain which show positive? that is precisely the argument that Stadler is making. If there is immunity it would stand to reason that some people who were immune, might be tested before they had shed the virus fragments from their body.
But let's put immunity aside, what of people who have recovered from a mild case, perhaps without ever realizing they were infected. Could they too, still have fragments of the dead virus in their system, and then be tested? Not sometime in the future when antibody testing is capable of determining that a person had an infection but after the infection is defeated by a person's immune system but has not yet shed all those fragments. Instead of these people being what they truly are, recovered, they would then be recorded as a new case. Is this possible?
How long does it take to shed inactive virus fragments? It turns out that studies have looked into this, here is an article about one such study done in Germany:
At the same time, the study suggests that while people with mild infections can still test positive by throat swabs for days and even weeks after their illness, those who are only mildly sick are likely not still infectious by about 10 days after they start to experience symptoms.
I know what you are thinking, surely the experts would have figured this out, would have some way of accounting for this. Do you know that the basis for the entire global warming scare, now called climate change, is based on models which after all these years cannot account for one if not the most important factor in climate change? The effect clouds play in their so called theory?
"Thus it is ironic that when it comes to forecasting the climate several decades ahead, clouds mainly obscure our vision......The ways that clouds respond to changes in the climate are so complex that it is hard to determine their net effect on the energy and water balances and to determine how much climate might change."
You may believe that surely, given the gravity of the current pandemic situation, they would not count people who were not infectious as cases. I would answer, surely the "experts" would not disrupt the entire world order, when they can't even explain clouds, but they have. However when it comes to Covid-19 we already know they would because they have already counted recovered people as new cases.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that it is mixing the results of two different kinds of tests in the agency's tally of testing for the coronavirus, raising concerns among some scientists that it could be creating an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic in the United States.
The CDC combines the results of genetic tests that spot people who are actively infected, mostly by using a process known as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, with results from another, known as serology testing, which looks for antibodies in people's blood. Antibody testing is used to identify people who were previously infected."
That was back in May. From an epidemiology standpoint it was pure stupidity. Then again, from an organization that was trying to recover from their initial testing fiasco, the more tests the better. Which is still the case, for now, the more cases the better. Have they resolved this issue of mixing tests? Sort of, in some places, we think.
Just to add another wrinkle to all this, many states, California for example, report specimens tested not actual persons tested. This could be significant. There are many reasons that a person could have more than one positive test. In reality multiple testing of positive individuals is not unusual, so multiple positive tests are not only possible but likely. Depending on the state each test will be reported as a "new case."
What this means is the hype over "cases" which are nothing more than positive tests could be dramatically overblown. If people that have already had the virus and recovered are being listed as "new cases" then it certainly explains these massive surges of cases that don't show up in hospitals or die. Even if you assign no nefarious motives to any of this, we, the world has never done anything remotely like this before. The United States is now testing between three quarters and one million people a day! That is not only a remarkable achievement, it is ripe for mistakes, miscalculations, and shenanigans
The worst mistake would be if many of these "new cases" were not infectious. The entire justification for this social disruption, slim as it already is, would be as tragic as...well as shutting off the source of energy for the world.
"The PCR test with its extreme sensitivity was initially perfect to find out where the virus could be. But this test can not identify whether the virus is still alive, i.e. still infectous."
These tests are highly specific because they are based on the unique genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2. If a test comes back positive, you can be confident that there was SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in the specimen.
During this pandemic, there have been two types of tests for which the FDA has issued EUAs. One type are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, a molecular diagnostic testing technique that detects the genetic material from the virus and can help diagnose an active COVID-19 infection.
No pre-existing immunity before the pandemic began in 2019. It is assumed that all members of the U.S. population were susceptible to infection prior to the pandemic.
Not that they actually know that there is no immunity, that would be highly unusual, only that they do not know. This includes before or after infection. Because they have no studies to prove immunity, they must plan as if there is no immunity.
"The relative infectiousness of asymptomatic cases to symptomatic cases remains highly uncertain as asymptomatic cases are difficult to identify and transmission is difficult to observe and quantify. The estimates for relative infectiousness are assumptions based on studies of viral shedding dynamics....the current estimates are an assumption."
Is it possible that "some" asymptomatic Covid-19 cases are people who are simply immune? They test positive because their immunity system has shattered the virus, but fragments still remain which show positive? that is precisely the argument that Stadler is making. If there is immunity it would stand to reason that some people who were immune, might be tested before they had shed the virus fragments from their body.
But let's put immunity aside, what of people who have recovered from a mild case, perhaps without ever realizing they were infected. Could they too, still have fragments of the dead virus in their system, and then be tested? Not sometime in the future when antibody testing is capable of determining that a person had an infection but after the infection is defeated by a person's immune system but has not yet shed all those fragments. Instead of these people being what they truly are, recovered, they would then be recorded as a new case. Is this possible?
How long does it take to shed inactive virus fragments? It turns out that studies have looked into this, here is an article about one such study done in Germany:
But let's put immunity aside, what of people who have recovered from a mild case, perhaps without ever realizing they were infected. Could they too, still have fragments of the dead virus in their system, and then be tested? Not sometime in the future when antibody testing is capable of determining that a person had an infection but after the infection is defeated by a person's immune system but has not yet shed all those fragments. Instead of these people being what they truly are, recovered, they would then be recorded as a new case. Is this possible?
How long does it take to shed inactive virus fragments? It turns out that studies have looked into this, here is an article about one such study done in Germany:
At the same time, the study suggests that while people with mild infections can still test positive by throat swabs for days and even weeks after their illness, those who are only mildly sick are likely not still infectious by about 10 days after they start to experience symptoms.
I know what you are thinking, surely the experts would have figured this out, would have some way of accounting for this. Do you know that the basis for the entire global warming scare, now called climate change, is based on models which after all these years cannot account for one if not the most important factor in climate change? The effect clouds play in their so called theory?
"Thus it is ironic that when it comes to forecasting the climate several decades ahead, clouds mainly obscure our vision......The ways that clouds respond to changes in the climate are so complex that it is hard to determine their net effect on the energy and water balances and to determine how much climate might change."
You may believe that surely, given the gravity of the current pandemic situation, they would not count people who were not infectious as cases. I would answer, surely the "experts" would not disrupt the entire world order, when they can't even explain clouds, but they have. However when it comes to Covid-19 we already know they would because they have already counted recovered people as new cases.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that it is mixing the results of two different kinds of tests in the agency's tally of testing for the coronavirus, raising concerns among some scientists that it could be creating an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic in the United States.
The CDC combines the results of genetic tests that spot people who are actively infected, mostly by using a process known as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, with results from another, known as serology testing, which looks for antibodies in people's blood. Antibody testing is used to identify people who were previously infected."
That was back in May. From an epidemiology standpoint it was pure stupidity. Then again, from an organization that was trying to recover from their initial testing fiasco, the more tests the better. Which is still the case, for now, the more cases the better. Have they resolved this issue of mixing tests? Sort of, in some places, we think.
Just to add another wrinkle to all this, many states, California for example, report specimens tested not actual persons tested. This could be significant. There are many reasons that a person could have more than one positive test. In reality multiple testing of positive individuals is not unusual, so multiple positive tests are not only possible but likely. Depending on the state each test will be reported as a "new case."
What this means is the hype over "cases" which are nothing more than positive tests could be dramatically overblown. If people that have already had the virus and recovered are being listed as "new cases" then it certainly explains these massive surges of cases that don't show up in hospitals or die. Even if you assign no nefarious motives to any of this, we, the world has never done anything remotely like this before. The United States is now testing between three quarters and one million people a day! That is not only a remarkable achievement, it is ripe for mistakes, miscalculations, and shenanigans
The worst mistake would be if many of these "new cases" were not infectious. The entire justification for this social disruption, slim as it already is, would be as tragic as...well as shutting off the source of energy for the world.
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