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https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/A-Rebuttal-of-claims-by-Christopher-Snowdon-about-false-positive-COVID-19-test-results_NLewis.pdf
<Snowdon wrote that Yeadon "did not draw the obvious conclusion that if the false positive rate of the PCR test was 0.8 percent, the ONS should find positives at least 0.8 percent of the time." Snowdon may think that is an obvious conclusion, but...
<Snowdon wrote that Yeadon "did not draw the obvious conclusion that if the false positive rate of the PCR test was 0.8 percent, the ONS should find positives at least 0.8 percent of the time." Snowdon may think that is an obvious conclusion, but...
... unfortunately that just reveals his scientific and statistical ignorance. As I will show, what Snowdon thinks is an 'obvious conclusion' is actually false>.
Whatever you think of the wider arguments about the reliability of PCR mass testing, there is no doubt that my...
Whatever you think of the wider arguments about the reliability of PCR mass testing, there is no doubt that my...
...claim that, during a long period last year, the vast majority of positive test results were false. It does critics no good to write sly & unpleasant pieces disparaging the intelligence of those who note & support, with multiple lines of evidence, that there are very serious...
...problems with the testing system on the basis of which the entire nation remains in unprecedented lockdowns. I repeat my central concern that it’s criminally incompetent to run, and to allow to be run, a medical diagnostic test of immense importance, without regular...
...determination of the operational false positive rate (oFPR). For no other medical diagnostic would this be acceptable. Why is SAGE, not only replete with modellers (who have the right as well as obligation to use accurate input data) but also with PhD scientists, who know...
...that what I’ve just said is factually correct, permitted to continue to brandish known-inaccurate “cases” data, as they guide Govt? Hancock isn’t a scientist, but he need only to open any introductory text on diagnostic testing & he will find that raw positivity from such...
...a testing system CANNOT be used to deduce what fraction of positives are genuine. I hear repeatedly that “I’m always banging in about last summer”. Excuse me? I’ve only proven that the entire evidential base upon which the country relied & was entitled to rely for assessment..
...of the position of the nation in relation to SARS-COV-2 infection was terminally flawed. If I was correct then, rather than attacking my genuine concerns about the present, would it not, at least privately, be rationale to put in place wholly normal checks & controls to...
...endure that similar problems aren’t continuing today? The answer is yes, it would be. Why are they not? I do not know, but my focus on summer arose to some prominence because there is independent, empirical evidence underwriting my claims. It’s said that this problem, that...
...false positives are only a problem when the true prevalence of infection is low. That would be true if we make the incorrect assumption that the only thing which changes is the prevalence, that is, that all other aspects of the testing system are unchanged. That assumption...
...is incorrect because higher true prevalence is associated, in an industrial-scale PCR mass testing system, with greater potential for false positives to arise through sample cross-contamination. So it’s not true that we can put the embarrassing summer episode behind us, sure..
...in the belief that the oFPR must be too low to be problematic. Cross contamination related false positives are, today, an unknown influence of the testing system. Our entire way of life hinges of this data being correct & it’s impossible to state that it is. Because Govt...
...unaccountably refuses to require that the Lighthouse Labs run properly blinded, virus-free negative controls regularly through their entire sample chain of custody, we still don’t know what fraction of positives are genuine. I don’t make specific claims for the extent of...
...distortion, because there’s no basis on which to do do. But I am pointing out that the oFPR is not fixed, is contextual, is easily & cheaply determinable any day. I further observe that it doesn’t take much of an oFPR to account for an important fraction of “cases”. We are...
...currently running approximately 600k tests per day. An oFPR is merely 4% would yield 24k false positives every day. Before you shout that this rate is impossible, I say “how can you possibly know that?”. No one in history has ever run testing using PCR on such a prodigious...
...scale. That’s why I again demand that routine determination of oFPR be done, often (ideally, with every run) & that this value be published along with the “cases” data. Be in no doubt: Govt continues, for no reason that’s obvious to me, to ramp up daily test capacity. I am...
...not the only scientist to have severe concerns about PCR mass testing in U.K. (note, no inferences should be made about what other countries are doing). I just happen to be among the most public of the critics. I have daily exchanges with professors of immunology, biology...
...and statistics & all of us are deeply concerned about this. If Govt & SAGE are not forced to demand that private testing operators change their QC processes, I predict that flawed data will continue to be used to restrict our liberties. I look forward to responses from...
...those able to influence decision makers in this point & I anticipate other scientists bringing challenges to our PCR mass testing system.
