Diarium Neminis

I’ve written already on why there is abundant reason not to trust PCRs for diagnosis of the pandemic status of SARS-CoV-2. I’ve added that over-reliance on these methods can easily lead to psuedo-epidemics.

This time I want to present you with other factual sources on PCR.

First, the picture above shows you part of a data sheet of a PCR kit for SARS-CoV-2. Notice the highlights:

• the test can suffer interference from a host of other common seasonal viruses
• the test should not be used as a sole evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment

Second, article in the British Medical Journal clearly states:

RT-PCR tests can detect viral SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the upper respiratory tract for a mean of 17 days; however, detection of viral RNA does not necessarily equate to infectiousness, and viral culture from PCR positive upper respiratory tract samples has been rarely positive beyond nine days of illness.

Third, the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine’s article clearly explains that testing positive to PCR does not equate to infection:

A PCR test might find the virus it was looking for. This results in a PCR positive, but a crucial question remains: is this virus active, i.e. infectious, or virulent? The PCR alone cannot answer this question. The CEBM explains why culturing the virus is needed to answer this question:

“In viral culture, viruses are injected in the laboratory cell lines to see if they cause cell damage and death, thus releasing a whole set of new viruses that can go on to infect other cells.”

there is no guidance providing details on the specific RNA sequences required by testing, a threshold for the test result and the need for confirmatory testing. It is therefore not clear to us what constitutes a positive result
— Read on www.cebm.net/covid-19/when-is-covid-covid/

PCR tests are picking up rubbish. Literally. They are picking up “dead virus” so to speak, that is, incomplete viral genome that doesn’t make anybody sick.

Some links about this:

• Clinical, immunological and virological characterization of COVID-19 patients that test re-positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. Among 619 discharged COVID-19 cases, 87 re-tested as SARS-CoV-2 positive in circumstances of social isolation. […] No infectious strain could be obtained by culture and no full-length viral genomes could be sequenced from re-positive cases.
• Coronavirus cases are mounting but deaths remain stable. Why? Evidence is mounting that a good proportion of ‘new’ mild cases and people re-testing positives after quarantine or discharge from hospital are not infectious, but are simply clearing harmless virus particles which their immune system has efficiently dealt with.
• Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found. […] In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.
• Warum alle falsch lagen (English translation: Why everyone was wrong). 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]. That’s exactly what happened, when there was the global news, even shared by the WHO, that 200 Koreans who already went through Covid-19 were infected a second time and that there was therefore probably no immunity against this virus. The explanation of what really happened and an apology came only later, when it was clear that the immune Koreans were perfectly healthy and only had a short battle with the virus. The crux was that the virus debris registered with the overly sensitive test and therefore came back as “positive”. It is likely that a large number of the daily reported infection numbers are purely due to viral debris. 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.

2014: the [PCR] method is so sensitive that it can detect a single genetic molecule of this virus. For example, if such a pathogen scurrys over the nasal mucosa in a nurse for a day without falling ill or noticing anything else, then she is suddenly a Mers case. Where previously fatally ill people were reported, mild cases and people who are actually core healthy are now suddenly included in the reporting statistics.
— Read on amp2.wiwo.de/technologie/forschung/virologe-drosten-im-gespraech-2014-der-koerper-wirdstaendig-von-viren-angegriffen/9903228.html

Very sensible. PCR testing is a bad idea for diagnostics. Yet, fast forward 6 years, and Drosten is responsible for the paper that formed the basis for the worldwide mass testing policy for Covid19.

What changed? Certainly not the science or the tests. After all, use of PCR has been widely criticised by many scientists (no, not on the MSM). And recently a damning review of the above paper appeared.

No study detected live virus beyond day 9 of illness, despite persistently high viral loads, which were inferred from cycle threshold values.

Our study shows that despite evidence of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding in respiratory and stool samples, viable virus appears to be short-lived. Therefore, RNA detection cannot be used to infer infectiousness.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30172-5/fulltext

Once again, I find myself sharing a paper that confirms the science prior to Covid19 propaganda. SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus and there was never a reason why this coronavirus should behave differently to others. To summarise the lies told during the pandemic

1. People can be infectious for months. False (as reported above). PCR tests coming back positive do not mean people are infectious or even sick. PCR can only detect the presence of RNA, but it says nothing about the virus replicating or not. RNA material can be around for months after a person recovers. And it can also be found in immune people. Being immune does not mean the virus never enters your body, it means it does and it gets neutralised.
2. Asymptomatic people are the major spreaders. False.
3. Masks help stopping/slowing the spread. False.
4. Lockdowns help stopping/slowing the spread. False.

Latest in a growing list of sceptics with regards to “a second wave of Covid” is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which says:

Will the huge rollout of COVID tests help end the pandemic—or assure that it will never end?

We have had pseudo-epidemics before. In 2006, much of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was shut down, and 1,000 employees were furloughed or quarantined, because whooping cough was thought to be spreading like wildfire based on 142 positive PCR tests.

The employees also had cultures taken, and a couple weeks later not a single one had a positive culture for the slow-growing bacteria, Bordetella pertussis. There had simply been an outbreak of some other ordinary respiratory disease, not the dreaded whooping cough. Gina Kolata wrote in The New York Times: “Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t.”

It is not so easy to culture a virus, and cultures of SARS-CoV-2 are not routinely done. Unlike in previous epidemics (SARS-CoV-1, H1N1 influenza, Ebola, or Zika), World Health Organization (WHO) guidance has no requirement or recommendation for a confirmatory test in COVID-19.

There is surprisingly little information on the false positive rate of PCR tests for COVID. That all lab tests have false positives should not be controversial, but this idea “has been entirely rejected by governments and the medical establishment, writes Mike Hearn.

For all tests, the predictive value of a positive test depends on the prevalence of disease. If most of the persons tested are free of disease, a positive test may be more likely to be a false than a true positive. This could at least partially explain the reports of large numbers of asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2.

Failure to recognize the problem of false positives has consequences—such as possible quarantining of uninfected with infected individuals.

The dreaded “second wave” might be a surge of false positive tests that are inevitable in mass screenings of healthy persons.

If you get a positive PCR result, you might want to get a confirmatory test, for example antibodies, especially if you are not sick. Positive or not, you might want to be sure you have adequate levels of vitamin D and zinc, and access to a physician willing to prescribe early home treatment.

For more information:

“What Does a Positive PCR Test Mean?”

“COVID-19 Statistics and Facts: Meaningful or a Means of Manipulation?”

“COVID-19 Diagnosis”