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1/ PCR Tests are really crucial to understanding this Pandemic and what is driving it.
In a way, they explain EVERYTHING.
In a way, they explain EVERYTHING.
2/ They likely produce on average 2.3% false positive results according to this preprint.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20080911v3.full.pdf
If you do 10,000 tests, you will get, on average, 230 false positives.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20080911v3.full.pdf
If you do 10,000 tests, you will get, on average, 230 false positives.
3/ If your total number of positive cases is around 230 (or less) for every 10,000 tests you're doing, which is the current daily situation in Ireland, they're possibly all false positives. https://twitter.com/damianbruced/status/1300392009539235843?s=20
4/ As the paper concludes:
"The reliability of positive results falls to near zero when test positivity approaches the FPR (False positive rate, i.e. 2.3%)."
Ireland's test positivity rate fell to 2.3 back in May and has stayed below it ever since.
"The reliability of positive results falls to near zero when test positivity approaches the FPR (False positive rate, i.e. 2.3%)."
Ireland's test positivity rate fell to 2.3 back in May and has stayed below it ever since.
5/ If you have a high positivity rate, then these false positives become background noise and your case numbers still give you a decent impression of the epidemic. But at low prevalence, like now, they may be all, or nearly all, the case numbers you get.
6/ In theory, you could carry on testing 10,000 people a day forever and even long after the virus was gone you'd continue getting on average 230 cases each time due to false positives.
It's just a completely improper use of the test.
It's just a completely improper use of the test.
7/ The second major issue is to do with the genuine positive PCR results and what that positive result actually means. This is to do with the nature of how PCR tests work.
From wiki...
From wiki...
8/ "Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail"
9/ What they effectively do is take some DNA and amplify it in a series of cycles to make whatever is in there observable, such as SARS-CoV II particles.
The issue, though, is how many times they cycle it.
The issue, though, is how many times they cycle it.
10/ As this NYT article makes clear, if you cycle too many times you end up discovering SARS-CoV II artifacts - little bits of debris from a long past infection. The test says you're positive but you're neither sick nor infectious as the virus is long gone https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
11/ Most PCR tests are being run at between 37 and 40 cycles according to the article which is too sensitive and is discovering these genetic artifacts - suggesting that the person had SARS-CoV II at some point but is no longer infectious. The virus is long gone.
12/ This is backed up by other studies which show that "SARS-CoV-2 persisted to be detectable till 63th day after symptom onset."
That's a long time! https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(20)30190-0/fulltext#.X0-AATzHt8A.twitter
That's a long time! https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(20)30190-0/fulltext#.X0-AATzHt8A.twitter
13/ "A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35 (cycles)," says the quoted expert in the NYT article, Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard.
This would more likely discover active and infectious cases and not find so many non infectious, effectively historical, cases.
This would more likely discover active and infectious cases and not find so many non infectious, effectively historical, cases.
14/ The article goes on to refer to New York's state lab which discovered 794 positive cases in July based on 40 cycles. Reduced to 35 cycles, only half those cases would be considered positive. Reduced to 30 cycles, only 30% of them would be positive.
15/ So how many of the current cases, publicised in the news and which are driving current restrictions, are live, infectious cases instead of false positives or just cases of noninfectious historical genetic artifacts?
16/ Well, given that deaths and hospitalisations are not rising, surely we can assume most, if not almost all, of this new wave of cases in Ireland and throughout Europe are based on one of either of the two flaws with PCR mentioned above.
17/ In Ireland alone, we are currently having less cases per day than the expected number of false positives. Our figures are effectively meaningless before even going into the potential for them being merely indicative of long since decayed SARS-CoV II
18/ But this isn't just significant for cases. It's important for the deaths that have happened too. Many jurisdictions classify a Covid death as someone who died within 30 days of a positive PCR test (e.g. Sweden, England).
19/ You could test positive, be completely asymptomatic (because the PCR test discovered a genetic artifact or it's just a false positive), be hit by a bus 3 weeks later and you go down as a Covid death.
20/ Or you die of any number of more mundane causes that kill people in their tens of thousands every single day but because you had a piece of SARs-CoV II detected in your 40 cycled DNA sample or because you were one of 2.3% false positives you go down as a Covid death.
21/ How many deaths throughout the world could be declassified as Covid-19 if the PCR test was set to 30 cycles rather than 40? How many deaths were assigned to Covid due to a false positive when they died of some other cause?
22/ If we treated the common cold like this, how many deaths could we ascribe to it every single year? If we PCR tested tens of thousands of people for it every day and if all you needed to have to be listed as a Common Cold death was a viral artifact from a long gone infection..
23/ ..how many deaths could we rack up? Given that people generally have 2 or more colds a year and viral particles can hang around for up to 3 months, well the answer would be millions.
Every single year. https://twitter.com/WeWanttoLive5/status/1297013231857410048?s=20
Every single year. https://twitter.com/WeWanttoLive5/status/1297013231857410048?s=20
24/ I'm not saying that Covid doesn't exist or that it didn't genuinely kill people but it's all about presentation. The PCR test allows us to too easily assign deaths and it allows us to too easily find cases that aren't really there.
25/ If governments and the media are responsible for whipping up hysteria about the virus that has resulted in untold misery across the globe then the PCR test, improperly used, has been one of the main weapons employed to do so.
Quick appendix to this thread. UK uses 45(!) cycles. And no infectious cases above 33 cycles. https://twitter.com/HeckofaLiberal/status/1304465840952098819?s=19
