The COVID-19 Pacification Project Continues Apace

 

I know, I promised that COVID-19: Case Closed would be my last COVID-19 post. But I am well and truly fed up and must express it somehow. Today’s trigger is actually from two sources: (1) PowerLine blog’s CORONAVIRUS IN ONE STATE (101) post where Scott Johnson’s formulation of “Governor Walz’s continuing pacification program” was pitch perfect, and (2) a report about the “gold standard” PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 delivering false positive results for reasons that are both simple to understand and maddeningly simple to resolve if someone could be bothered to do so.

That COVID-19 is now a “pacification project” and not a health emergency is beyond question. We will always have disease — it is why we have invested so heavily in medical research, training, and care. Mother Nature is a bitch who keeps trying to “cull the herd” with a focus on promoting reproduction and little else. Mankind has used its intelligence to make ourselves more at risk from each other than from Mother Nature. Nevertheless Mother Nature keeps coming at us and always will.

So “until there’s a cure” is not a public health policy. But it has been extremely useful to the Progressive Project to test how much the People will “up with put.” Turns out it’s more than we should and far more than we would if the public were given good information.

The case count is suspect. The death count is suspect. The hospitalization count is suspect. But even with the errors, the general trends are obvious: The disease is not the threat to societal viability, but the response to the disease by people in authority is.

The Progressive Project is using fear to control us for its objectives. In the current political moment it has a two-pronged attack: fear of disease and fear of violence. At the moment, the progressive shock troops burning and looting seems to have backfired so the Progressives are pulling back on their public support. But what about fear of disease? There is as yet no let up.

And yet the “tells” are all out there that we will not all die and (this is even more important) government policy is not going to deliver a positive health outcome for you. Across the globe, the disease does what it does without regard to government policies. Total societal outcomes (think economics, mental health, and harms from other diseases) do vary based on government policy, but not SARS-CoV-2. And the report cited above explains that “confirmed” cases are way overstated because the PCR test outcome is sensitive to the “cycle threshold” employed by a particular testing laboratory.

At issue is the method by which many COVID-19 tests detect a patient’s viral load within a given sample. Polymerase chain reaction tests, which have been widely deployed to determine if individuals are infected with the disease, function by amplifying DNA samples to the point that an antigen can be detected and classified.

The “cycle threshold” is the number of amplification cycles a PCR test goes through before a target pathogen is detected. A lower cycle threshold means that a higher amount of the virus was present in the sample; a higher threshold means the machine had to work harder to detect the virus in the sample, indicating a lower viral load and more likely a non-infectious patient. (emphasis added)

And

According to a rundown of PCR tests compiled by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, many manufacturers of PCR tests set the cycle threshold cutoff for a positive sample at up to around 40 cycles, a level numerous public health officials believe is guaranteed to return what are effectively false positive results that have detected fragments of the virus.

***

A spokeswoman for LabCorp — one of the largest clinical laboratory groups in the world — said the company “does not include the CT value in result reporting.”

So not only do we have the problem of distinguishing between patients who are ill from SARS-CoV-2 and those ill with SARS-CoV-2, we are not distinguishing between tested individuals who have enough virus to make them contagious and those who do not, and we don’t know the cycle threshold used in all the positive results.

Holy mother of [redacted].

And our public health establishment seems studiously incurious and unquestioning. Why? Because it is useful. Useful to keep us in fear; useful to keep us under control.

The COVID-19 pacification project continues apace, indeed. As Attorney General Barr point out the other day

You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.

[Note: Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]

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  1. DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Rodin:

    The COVID-19 pacification project continues apace, indeed. As Attorney General Barr point out the other day

    You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.

    Judge Stickman would agree. His decision against the PA Governor and Secretary of Health makes for marvelous reading.

    Locally there is an effort to grant our county health kommissar extraordinary powers to combat this threat, including (if the language of the ordinance can be believed) the power to forcibly remove people from their homes and isolate them in a locked-down facility. I understand this sort of thing is being tried in every county in Wisconsin.

    Wisconsin is now having its (I suspect) first true peak in case numbers (record daily case numbers this week, although our fatality rate has continued to fall since April). This is largely due to colleges being back in session. I think every state and region of the country is going to have to experience the same peak and falloff, and no amount of mask mandates or business closures is going to work. The only way out is through.

    • #1
  2. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Going forward, will the Wuhan Flu be more like a seasonal flu or like a seasonal cold?   

    • #2
  3. Buckpasser Member
    Buckpasser
    @Buckpasser

    But it’s a pandemic!!  How can we force the deplo……I mean the general public to wear a mask for the rest of their lives and stay in their basements if we can’t dictate OUR policy?

    • #3
  4. DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow
    @DrewInWisconsin

    By the way, I went to check the local data. Due to our new case numbers, which are mostly among college students, for our county the 20-29 age group accounts for just over half of all our cases since the start. Add in the 10–19 age group and it’s 65%.

    Which is to say that unless there are underlying conditions, I expect to see no new deaths or hospitalizations.

    Since March we have had 1,400 cases out of 20,640 tested (in a county of 100,000) but only 45 ever required hospital stays of any length. Six deaths, which of course, is tragic.

    But I’m not sure we need to give our County Health Kommissar emergency powers to forcibly remove people from their homes.

     

    • #4
  5. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Going forward, will the Wuhan Flu be more like a seasonal flu or like a seasonal cold?

    For those under  40 and healthy, it already has a lower mortality rate than the seasonal flu.

    For those over 50, for those with other health issues, and especially for those over 65-ish it will remain the deadly illness it is today.   

    The current regime of distance/masking/hand sanitising makes perfect sense for those at-risk individuals.   And for those in close contact with them.   However, it seems to me, that the lockdowns and wholesale carpet-bombing of the economy make no sense for the country as a whole.    Re-open.    Encourage the at-risk population and those in close contact with them to employ the mask/distance/sanitising strategy.  But everyone else should get back to living life.   Oh …  Roll out vaccines ASAP.    

    • #5
  6. CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker
    @CarolJoy

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    By the way, I went to check the local data. Due to our new case numbers, which are mostly among college students, for our county the 20-29 age group accounts for just over half of all our cases since the start. Add in the 10–19 age group and it’s 65%.

    Which is to say that unless there are underlying conditions, I expect to see no new deaths or hospitalizations.

    Since March we have had 1,400 cases out of 20,640 tested (in a county of 100,000) but only 45 ever required hospital stays of any length. Six deaths, which of course, is tragic.

    But I’m not sure we need to give our County Health Kommissar emergency powers to forcibly remove people from their homes.

     

    Those of us who look at all of this from a different angle are rather certain that there is  a much larger something that should be examined. Why has Fauci recently stated that “just because a vaccine is made available does not mean the public will get back to normal before the end of 2021 at the earliest.” (I am paraphrasing his remarks.)

    Trump has seen to it that some 1.2 or 1.4 billions of dollars has been offered up to GAVI, the “charity foundation” run by Bill and Melinda Gates by which work on vaccinations and vaccination programs can be underway.

    Many here are unopposed to vaccines. But Bill Gates made it perfectly clear, crystal clear, that his larger agenda had to do with a “protective measure” that would ensure that each of us worried about our health could be offered reassurance by this protective measure that he would be able to provide.

    After all, wouldn’t any decent citizen want the government to know exactly where  our neighbors are at every moment of their lives, in case someone who was infected with COVID might not be home under quarantine as they ought to be, as well as keeping updates on people not yet vaxxed?

    Bill Gates said while being interviewed on  legacy media TV stations that we would all want this information to be available, with the  implication he would be the best person to provide it. His buddies, Bill and Hillary Clinton made statements as to their devotion to the contact tracing program. It is clear they will be using the Clinton Foundation to help undertake this monumental task.

    • #6
  7. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    There is tremendously good news for the entire world in the PCR test story. The tests picked up genetic material from the dead virus bodies in the person’s system. That’s why those tests were positive.

    This is stop-the-presses news. Seriously.

    This means that in 90 percent of those who tested positive, their own immune system had already killed the virus. Between those people and the people who may already have had some type of innate immunity (possibly like the 80 percent of the Diamond Princess passengers), the pandemic may burn out much more quickly than predicted.

    I don’t know if the immunity is durable. It’s too bad we didn’t conduct some long-term studies after the first outbreak in 2002 and 2003. If it is durable, then today’s schoolkids who are passing around this virus :-) will be immune to it and possibly pass it along to future generations.

    If ever there were a reason to open up everything, it’s this test information.

    May God save us from politics. That is the only thing that is keeping us from breathing a sigh of relief and getting back to our normal life. (That said, I’d invest in disposable gowns for people to wear when they visit sick people in hospitals and long-term-care facilities. But how cheap would that be in comparison to what the lockdown measures are costing us? And those people have been sitting targets for all of the pneumonia bugs that travel with the cold and flu bugs anyway. We have never addressed that problem the way we should.)

    The New York Times version of this story is excellent, by the way. Amazing most of all is that this story came out at the end of August. It has had so little response in the public at large or in the press.

    • #7
  8. CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker
    @CarolJoy

    MarciN (View Comment):

    There is tremendously good news for the entire world in the PCR test story. The tests picked up genetic material from the dead virus bodies in the person’s system. That’s why those tests were positive.

    This is stop-the-presses news. Seriously.

    This means that in 90 percent of those who tested positive, their own immune system had already killed the virus. Between those people and the people who may already have had some type of innate immunity (possibly like the 80 percent of the Diamond Princess passengers), the pandemic may burn out much more quickly than predicted.

    I don’t know if the immunity is durable. It’s too bad we didn’t conduct some long-term studies after the first outbreak in 2002 and 2003. If it is durable, then today’s schoolkids who are passing around this virus :-) will be immune to it and possibly pass it along to future generations.

    If ever there was a reason to open up everything, it’s this test information.

    May God save us from politics. That’s is the only thing that is keeping us from breathing a sigh of relief and getting back to our normal life. (That said, I’d invest in disposable gowns for people to wear when they visit sick people in hospitals and long-term-care facilities. But how cheap would that be in comparison to what the lockdown measures are costing us? And those people have been sitting targets for all of the pneumonia bugs that travel with the cold and flu bugs anyway. We have never addressed that problem the way we should.)

    The New York Times version of this story is excellent, by the way. Amazing most of all is that this story came out at the end of August. It has had so little response in the public at large or in the press.

    Thank you for bringing this information forward. It is well worth a lot more attention than it is getting.

    • #8
  9. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    By the way, this is the way inoculation works. It’s exactly the same thing: introduce a tiny amount of bacteria or virus into the human body to allow the immune system to learn what it or its cousin looks like and prepare a defense and then store that information in the immune system’s library. 

    With this particular coronavirus, we’re watching the human immune system react and respond across the globe in real time. It would be pretty cool if we had realized that’s what we were seeing. 

    Avoid concentrating the virus in confined spaces filled with people who are unable to mount a defense. But that should be sufficient to avoid a high death toll from this virus. 

    I don’t think the influenza virus works this way, but that is something I’ve never understood. I know there are four or five strains, they become active in the southern hemisphere during their winter, that gives us time over that summer to identify which strain will be active in the northern hemisphere for us so we can prepare a vaccine. Why our immune system fails to recognize these strains on its own I don’t understand since the different strains appear to come and go with some regularity. When the H1N1 pandemic hit in 2009, experts said that the boomers appeared to be immune to it because it had circulated previously in their lifetime. From that I gather that there is some immune system archive records on various strains of the flu.  

    But apparently this coronavirus is working the standard way it usually works, as we can see in this newest information that 90 percent of the people who tested positive had only dead virus bodies in their system. 

    • #9
  10. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    The success of declaring a “health emergency” to develop a pacification project is illustrated by the increasing frequency with which we see politicians declaring all sorts of social problems as “health emergencies” (gun violence, racism, poverty, and income inequality to name a few I have seen), presumably to prepare the population for greater and more persistent government restrictions and controls on our liberties. 

    • #10
  11. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):
    By the way, I went to check the local data. Due to our new case numbers, which are mostly among college students, for our county the 20-29 age group accounts for just over half of all our cases since the start. Add in the 10–19 age group and it’s 65%.

    I heard Madison was using a gain factor of 45 for PCR testing.  That is enough amplification to have a false positive rate of 98%.   The only useful metric is hospitalizations, since there is at least one person (the patient) that is not biased in favor of boosting the metrics.

    • #11
  12. Buckpasser Member
    Buckpasser
    @Buckpasser

    Who declares a pandemic over,  Governor Half Wit, Governor Dim Wit or Governor Nit Wit?

    • #12
  13. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):
    The only useful metric is hospitalizations, since there is at least one person (the patient) that is not biased in favor of boosting the metrics.

    I agree that hospitalizations is the correct metric for severity. The problem is that it is unclear whether someone is admitted with or from COVID-19. From the hospitals perspective they have to isolate unless its a false positive. But from a severity metric hospitalizations with rather than from distort the numbers and public policy. 

    • #13
  14. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):
    The only way out is through.

    True!

    • #14
  15. JennaStocker Member
    JennaStocker
    @JennaStocker

    Governor Walz keeps extending his Emergency Powers. I think at this point he’ll hold on to them until he leaves office. He keeps using the threat – eerily similar to those who like perpetual foreign wars – that the real “Big One” could hit at any time! The spike could return! We’re not out of the woods yet! We can’t let our guards down! There could be a resurgence! And on, and on…The fear of threat makes excellent compliant citizens. Because the ruler government knows best. He it will keep you safe.

    • #15
  16. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Rodin:

    The COVID-19 pacification project continues apace, indeed. As Attorney General Barr point out the other day

    You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.

    Judge Stickman would agree. His decision against the PA Governor and Secretary of Health makes for marvelous reading.

    Locally there is an effort to grant our county health kommissar extraordinary powers to combat this threat, including (if the language of the ordinance can be believed) the power to forcibly remove people from their homes and isolate them in a locked-down facility. I understand this sort of thing is being tried in every county in Wisconsin.

    Wisconsin is now having its (I suspect) first true peak in case numbers (record daily case numbers this week, although our fatality rate has continued to fall since April). This is largely due to colleges being back in session. I think every state and region of the country is going to have to experience the same peak and falloff, and no amount of mask mandates or business closures is going to work. The only way out is through.

    • #16
  17. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    Who declares a pandemic over, Governor Half Wit, Governor Dim Wit or Governor Nit Wit?

    Kommissar Gates.

    See the source image

    • #17
  18. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Going forward, will the Wuhan Flu be more like a seasonal flu or like a seasonal cold?

    Yes.  That was always going to be the case.  The governments activities have been like Canute ordering the tides not to hit the shore.

    • #18
  19. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    JennaStocker (View Comment):

    Governor Walz keeps extending his Emergency Powers. I think at this point he’ll hold on to them until he leaves office. He keeps using the threat – eerily similar to those who like perpetual foreign wars – that the real “Big One” could hit at any time! The spike could return! We’re not out of the woods yet! We can’t let our guards down! There could be a resurgence! And on, and on…The fear of threat makes excellent compliant citizens. Because the ruler government knows best. He it will keep you safe.

    Our Land Of Confusion with Max Ledeoux was instructional.

    When Governor Sununnu was asked when he would stop the state of emergency his answer was, “When my poll numbers go down.”

    When the real damage starts to hit people in the coming years, that when these Politicians will be forced out.   Sadly the rest of us will be dealing with 15 percent inflation.

    • #19
  20. Brian Clendinen Inactive
    Brian Clendinen
    @BrianClendinen

    COVID-19 is just a different take on its the Jews excuses so power hunger tyrants can be devil they get off on. Its possible for a nation to get rid of Jew not COVID. So its nothing new really just a different boogieman.

     

    • #20
  21. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Rodin: A spokeswoman for LabCorp — one of the largest clinical laboratory groups in the world — said the company “does not include the CT value in result reporting.”

    This is a problem. If good answers as to why are not forthcoming, I hope there will be an investigation.  There may have been an excuse early in the epidemic for not reporting them, but not now.

    • #21
  22. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Rodin: A spokeswoman for LabCorp — one of the largest clinical laboratory groups in the world — said the company “does not include the CT value in result reporting.”

    This is a problem. If good answers as to why are not forthcoming, I hope there will be an investigation. There may have been an excuse early in the epidemic for not reporting them, but not now.

    I actually woke up last night wondering why we weren’t getting these values.  And the spikes around the world: could they be the same false positives?

    • #22
  23. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Flicker (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Rodin: A spokeswoman for LabCorp — one of the largest clinical laboratory groups in the world — said the company “does not include the CT value in result reporting.”

    This is a problem. If good answers as to why are not forthcoming, I hope there will be an investigation. There may have been an excuse early in the epidemic for not reporting them, but not now.

    I actually woke up last night wondering why we weren’t getting these values. And the spikes around the world: could they be the same false positives?

    I’m glad more people are thinking about Ct values. 

    • #23
  24. DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Well, now that our state leads the nation in “new case numbers” our Governor has decided to extend his mask mandate to late November. I guess our hospitalizations are at their highest point ever. (Somewhere in the 400s.) Our fatality rate continues to fall, and is now down to 1.1%.

    • #24
  25. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Well, now that our state leads the nation in “new case numbers” our Governor has decided to extend his mask mandate to late November. I guess our hospitalizations are at their highest point ever. (Somewhere in the 400s.) Our fatality rate continues to fall, and is now down to 1.1%.

    Covidtracking.com says you’re now at 571 hospitalizations, with 166 in ICU. And it is an upward trend. Worldometers shows a slight downward trend in daily deaths.

    • #25
  26. DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow
    @DrewInWisconsin

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Well, now that our state leads the nation in “new case numbers” our Governor has decided to extend his mask mandate to late November. I guess our hospitalizations are at their highest point ever. (Somewhere in the 400s.) Our fatality rate continues to fall, and is now down to 1.1%.

    Covidtracking.com says you’re now at 571 hospitalizations, with 166 in ICU. And it is an upward trend. Worldometers shows a slight downward trend in daily deaths.

    That’s interesting. High ICU numbers, but not our highest ever. And hospitalizations were high in April, too. Also curious how cumulative ICU numbers can drop and then go back up again, if they’re cumulative? Data errors?

    • #26
  27. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Well, now that our state leads the nation in “new case numbers” our Governor has decided to extend his mask mandate to late November. I guess our hospitalizations are at their highest point ever. (Somewhere in the 400s.) Our fatality rate continues to fall, and is now down to 1.1%.

    Covidtracking.com says you’re now at 571 hospitalizations, with 166 in ICU. And it is an upward trend. Worldometers shows a slight downward trend in daily deaths.

    That’s interesting. High ICU numbers, but not our highest ever. And hospitalizations were high in April, too. Also curious how cumulative ICU numbers can drop and then go back up again, if they’re cumulative? Data errors?

    I seldom pay attention to cumulative numbers so didn’t notice that. 

    It’s good that you made the effort to look back to April. I finally sent a note to one of their contact addresses suggesting that they provide a “reduce vertical whitespace” option so we could look at more of the history at once.  If covid-19 somehow could kill off the web designer mania for excessive whitespace on web pages, especially those with tabular data, the pandemic would have had some redeeming social value.  

    • #27
  28. DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Constant Sorrow
    @DrewInWisconsin

    A lot of Wiscon-sinners are pointing out that our case numbers began to rise at the same time the statewide mask mandate came down. (Of course, they also rose sharply when students returned to college here.)

    • #28
  29. JustmeinAZ Member
    JustmeinAZ
    @JustmeinAZ

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    A lot of Wiscon-sinners are pointing out that our case numbers began to rise at the same time the statewide mask mandate came down. (Of course, they also rose sharply when students returned to college here.)

    Well, duh. Of course they did. What did they expect was going to happen? But still no reason to still mandate masks and no in person school. Shut downs and mask mandates are just prolonging the agony. Open up and get it over with.

    • #29
  30. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    I finally sent a note to one of their contact addresses suggesting that they provide a “reduce vertical whitespace” option so we could look at more of the history at once. If covid-19 somehow could kill off the web designer mania for excessive whitespace on web pages, especially those with tabular data, the pandemic would have had some redeeming social value.

    I actually got a personal reply from the covidtracking.com support people. They misunderstood what data I was talking about, but it wasn’t just a boilerplate reply, and they actually seemed to welcome the feedback.  It was a refreshing contrast to some private tech companies I’ve been dealing with these days.

    • #30
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