Wednesday, February 17, 2021

How Governments are Manipulating RT-PCR Test Data

There is no doubt in my mind that governments are manipulating their citizens by using "fear porn" to get us to succumb to their restrictive edicts.  In this posting, I want to shed the light of day on how one fairly substantial government is using cycle thresholds on RT-PCR tests, the current testing method being used to determine whether an individual is infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

 

As background, the RT-PCR test was NOT designed to be used for the purposes that it is currently being used for during the COVID-19 pandemic.  That said, governments around the world are using the test to determine whether or not people should be forced into government-sponsored quarantine facilities and using the results to shutter their economies despite the fact that the PCR tests are invalid or misused in many cases. 


The PCR test was designed by Kary Mullis in the early 1990s, winning him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  In an interview, Mullis notes the following:


 

Here are the key quotes:

 

"It (PCR) allows you to take a very minuscule amount of anything and make it measurable and talk about it in meetings and stuff like that....that's not a misuse, that's a misinterpretation."

 

"PCR is a process that is used to make a whole lot of something out of something....It doesn't tell you that you are sick and it doesn't tell you that the thing you ended up with really was going to hurt you or anything like that."


The RT-PCR test detects the presence of the RNA of the coronavirus from either a nasal or throat swab and is used to determine whether or not a person is actively infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  As Kary Mullis noted above, tiny fragments of RNA are amplified using varying numbers of cycles (aka the cycle threshold or Ct) until they are measurable.  Here is a diagram which shows the process and the problems that can occur:


The cycle threshold is key; the more cycles that are used, the more likely that the test will show a positive result for the COVID-19 virus.  However, as Mullis noted above, a positive test does not tell you whether you are really infected and whether you are infected to the point that your health or the health of others that you are exposed (i.e. whether you are infectious or not) to is impacted.


Anthony Fauci has stated that if a patient gets a cycle threshold of 35 or greater, that the chances of it being replicated (i.e. the virus is infectious) are minuscule as shown in this interview which you can see here.  Fauci clearly states that, at a high cycle threshold, the odds of the COVID-19 virus being passed along to another person is minuscule and that the PCR test is merely revealing the presence of dead viral nucleotides.  

 

A recent study from Oxford University looked at 250,566 RT-PCR test results for 179m151 patients of whom 13,161 tested positive.  The study found the following:


"It can be observed that at Ct = 25, up to 70% of patients remain positive in culture and that at Ct = 30 this value drops to 20%. At Ct = 35, the value we used to report a positive result for PCR, <3% of cultures are positive."


Now, with that background, let's look at what one government has recently done to manipulate its testing results.  The Public Health Department of the government of Ontario in Canada (Canada's most populous province with a population of 14.6 million people) had this cycle threshold recommendation on its website back in late January 2021:


As of mid-February, the cycle threshold has since changed to this:


This subtle change from a Ct of 30 to a Ct of 35 will mean that more people living in Ontario will test positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus even though, as noted above, a very, very small portion of these will actually be infectious and that less than 5 percent of them will have the latest iteration of the coronavirus that could be cultured in a laboratory.

 

As an aside and for any Canadians among my readers, here is a table showing the Ct values used by every province except Prince Edward Island with Ct values in excess of 35 being flagged:

 

Again, we clearly see governments' "fear porn" agenda.

 

This is just one example of government manipulation during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Without a growing number of positive COVID-19 tests, governments will be hard-pressed to explain to the public why extreme measures including lockdowns, quarantining and business closings are necessary.  By surreptitiously increasing the cycle threshold from 30 to 35, the Ontario government is clearly using "fear porn" to ensure that its citizens remain fearful and compliant to every civil rights-breaching measure that elected officials and unelected public health officers wish to impose.


5 comments:

  1. I've enjoyed your comments over the years (whether in agreement or not) but the slant taken with the Covid episode borders mis- and dis-information. So, here's a comment.
    With the RT-PCR tests, like any tests, there is potential for false positives and false negatives. While there are clear limitations for interpretation significance at the individual level and it remains a limited tool in that context, it's still very reasonable. At the population level though, it has been a very powerful tool to assess prevalence, community spread etc and overall results have been tightly correlated to the disease load (hospitalizations, deaths etc) at the population level.
    The test result (Ct threshold) can vary significantly for a person (from one day to the next), varies according to collection technique and according to the specific lab. Also, just like a positive test becomes negative the next day, the opposite can occur (statistical issue, collection technique, early in the disease etc). By combining all results, you obtain some sort of bell curve (distribution of Ct threshold values) and this offers valuable information. One of the reasons for the continued spread (and morbidity + mortality) has been the at-risk individuals who did not change their at-risk behaviors and who did not get tested (false negatives in a way).
    In the study referred to, the number of CT-threshold results above 30 is 25% and this is what has been reported elsewhere (15-25%).
    By focusing on specifics of a non issue, results at the population level have been poorer.
    Policies need to be questioned but adhering to dogma does NOT help.

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    1. Thank you for your thoughtful insight. What concerns me about the use of RT-PCR testing is that governments are completely ignoring the presence of false positives and the very fact that the test was quite clearly not designed to do what it is being used for (that's why I included Kary Mullis' input). Sadly, he passed away in August 2019 so we have no input from him on the use or misuse of his invention. Additionally, depending on your location, statistics and news reports from past winters are showing that the health care systems are generally under extreme threat from overloading. Sadly, instead of blaming themselves for their lack of funding in the health care sector, government leaders are using the pandemic as an excuse to blame COVID spreaders for potential overloading.

      Thanks again.

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    2. Thank you for the answer.
      i'm mostly retired from deep and direct involvement in healthcare. i belong to the school of thought that the most significant problem with healthcare is not inadequate funding but capital misallocation...
      The RT-PCR test was not 'designed' for individual testing and direct clinical application but it was the best tool under the circumstances (if you happen to believe that testing was necessary; i do think it has been a helpful tool).
      Just in case you are interested, the variables to look at are sensitivity and specificity as well as positive and negative predictive value. When a test is OKed for use, one has to define thresholds and it is a balancing act. If you happen to think that you have a cancer, you want to think that the threshold has been put at a level that results in not missing your diagnosis even if it means a risk of false positive exposure. At the individual and population level, related to the positive predictive value (the perspective of what it means if your test is positive), the rate of false positives is quite low if you have significant symptoms or if you live in an area where community spread is rampant vs if you have no symptoms or get tested 'just in case'. There are things to consider to 'educate' or to simply adjust (slightly) the threshold level to what is happening in the real world. Using Sweden as an example (i use Sweden because it does not tend to automatically repulse people who have an extreme view on this), they had to make some 'adjustments' along the way. https://www.bgi.com/global/company/news/false-positive-test-cases-in-sweden-explained/
      FWIW, i questioned all the 'policies', opposed, in principle, school closures and am appalled by the amount of debt issued in response to the response but one of the most concerning aspects during this pandemic has been the amount of questionable conclusions that people came up to, often based on a dogmatic approach.
      Have you seen the data coming out for this flu season in North America? Clearly the extraordinary measures have played a role but it appears that simple measures (distance, mask?, basic hand hygiene, staying home when sick) explain most of the difference. Like you correctly described the covid virus is much more benign than the flu in younger cohorts and this year, it looks like the death rate in children dying from the flu will be drastically reduced. Humans, especially when they efficiently work together, can make a difference (positive). At least, that's what evolution tends to show.

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    3. The test cannot indicate infection so it is entirely useless, and is being misused.

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  2. Excellent article and video...although the focus seemed to be about HIV it applies also to covid...in that video that was the Puerto Rican actor Esai Morales doing the interview...I always thought of him as a good actor but more importantly as involved in important issues...kudos...

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