I don't understand the obsession we have with testing for this virus. Prior to 2020, we never tested people to see if they had a particular type of virus unless they were sick enough to need serious medical attention.
If anything, COVID should have told us that we should encourage workplace policy that encourages people to stay home when ill, regardless of the disease. We're in such a weird position now, and the amount of places such as universities that have used PCR testing for surveillance of possible ill students just does absolutely no good and instead just reinforces a culture of paranoia and shame.
As a business owner for over two decades, I've always told people who were symptomatically ill to go home because I didn't want the rest of us catching whatever they had.
It's definitely something that people should be considering, and it's also why, at the end of the day, even if these tests prove to be highly faulty it's a good idea to still stay home when ill because it's still something. It's strange the amount of people I've seen going to work because they think it's more acceptable to go to work with a cold or flu rather than COVID.
You say "When an Antigen test is deployed within this early time frame of the disease, the lack of high viral load is likely to lead to a false positive, such that someone may not receive a positive result even though they are likely to be infected."
Don't you mean to say 'likely to lead to a false negative'? i.e. it indicates negative but it isn't really?
Shows you that I read it all and pay attention =;o)
Yes! I think someone commented that I accidentally posted the wrong one as well. It helps to spend a little more time editing but at some point things all start looking the same but yes it definitely changes the meaning greatly! Thanks for pointing it out!
I would imagine that if with Omicron the PCR test now is only able to detect 2 primers instead of 3 with the S part not there, the accuracy has gone down by 33% ? (Or is it the sensitivity or precision???)
I think it's an issue of using PCR as a diagnostic test. Normally, you may contact a doctor who evaluates your symptoms and comes up with a diagnosis. A PCR test then may be done as a confirmatory test rather than a diagnostic tool. The big issue we are having now is that we have relied too heavily on just PCR tests as a diagnostic tool. It's one of the reasons why we have essentially botched the categories of presymptomatic and asymptomatic.
If someone does not present with symptoms can you reliably diagnose them as being ill?
Thank you! It wasn't too bad for me but I know of some people who really got the flu-like symptoms. It's interesting how varied the dynamics can be, although there's always a rational reason for such variety.
I’m not sure how you were diagnosed with Omnicron as there are no current lab tests that differentiate between the strains, aside from gene sequencing based upon computer modeling of the various strains. Genetic sequencing is generally not performed as most state labs don’t have the capability to perform these specialized tests. The CDC when pressed with FOIA requests admitted they have no isolated samples of the “COVID “ virus. I must assume you either have a cold or the flu.
So Omicron follows a similar idea as Alpha in that it contains a 69-70 codon deletion in its spike protein. Alpha had the same deletion, and it apparently caused the S Gene to not amplify during PCR. I've written a bit about this and that the "S Gene Drop" was an indication of Alpha in 2020, and it could be used as an indication for Omicron now, although many labs unfortunately never report their actual Ct Values to patients which means you would have to rely on some assumptions.
Considering that Omicron is the dominant strain and that my symptoms were fairly mild I used those as measures. However, because Omicron is also more of an infection of the upper respiratory tract more people are reporting slightly painful sore throats. I did also use an antigen test, but as it tests for the Nucleocapsid protein there may be overlap with other viruses that may share the same antigen. However, I would say that the evidence would once again point to COVID.
When it comes to state labs, I would suspect that they may outsource the sequencing of their samples, although many states' Department of Health will routinely collect samples for surveillance. It's usually the method used to come up with the % of circulating variant.
It's interesting that they haven't been able to isolate, although part of me suspects this is because they really just have not done a good job all-around! I will say I do believe COVID is a very real virus with a very, very overbearing public health policy that has both gone on for way too long and is far more likely to have caused more harm than good.
I hear what you are saying, but Dr. Tenpenny clearly stated that they can not differentiate between the so called strains and that genetic sequencing is required which they are definitely not doing. I do understand that so called Omnicron is mild and confined to upper airway and not the lung. Something is causing this,but more evidence is pointing to EMF poisoning due to 5G. I suspect this will the case as no government anywhere around the world has been able to produce evidence of virus isolation using Koch’s gold standard.
I have been considering your comments this morning and I have viewed the FOIA request. My main issue with the FOIA is that they requested information on the COVID-19 virus (which absolutely does not exist). The disease called COVID-19 is caused by a virus named Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2 for short) - is this mincing words ... absolutely. The FOIA also requests info on a virus isolated via maceration, filtration and ultracentrifugation (just looking through some basic virology and those methods don't appear to be commonly used to "isolate" a virus). I would also argue that Koch's postulates really don't apply to viruses. Viruses are neither living or dead. They cannot be spread on an agar plate and grow as a bacteria would. They can only really do anything once they gain entry into a host. Here is a fascinating article on the Rivers/Koch postulates: https://viroliegy.com/2021/10/18/thomas-rivers-revision-of-kochs-postulates-1937/. Science is really messy! Here is a link to the Genbank entry for the "supposed" SARS-COV-2 isolate obtained by the CDC: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT020880.1/
I don't understand the obsession we have with testing for this virus. Prior to 2020, we never tested people to see if they had a particular type of virus unless they were sick enough to need serious medical attention.
If anything, COVID should have told us that we should encourage workplace policy that encourages people to stay home when ill, regardless of the disease. We're in such a weird position now, and the amount of places such as universities that have used PCR testing for surveillance of possible ill students just does absolutely no good and instead just reinforces a culture of paranoia and shame.
As a business owner for over two decades, I've always told people who were symptomatically ill to go home because I didn't want the rest of us catching whatever they had.
It's definitely something that people should be considering, and it's also why, at the end of the day, even if these tests prove to be highly faulty it's a good idea to still stay home when ill because it's still something. It's strange the amount of people I've seen going to work because they think it's more acceptable to go to work with a cold or flu rather than COVID.
Excellent article and very timely for me.
Is this correct though?
You say "When an Antigen test is deployed within this early time frame of the disease, the lack of high viral load is likely to lead to a false positive, such that someone may not receive a positive result even though they are likely to be infected."
Don't you mean to say 'likely to lead to a false negative'? i.e. it indicates negative but it isn't really?
Shows you that I read it all and pay attention =;o)
Yes! I think someone commented that I accidentally posted the wrong one as well. It helps to spend a little more time editing but at some point things all start looking the same but yes it definitely changes the meaning greatly! Thanks for pointing it out!
I would imagine that if with Omicron the PCR test now is only able to detect 2 primers instead of 3 with the S part not there, the accuracy has gone down by 33% ? (Or is it the sensitivity or precision???)
Why isn't anyone talking about this.
A previously useless test is 33% more useless.
I think it's an issue of using PCR as a diagnostic test. Normally, you may contact a doctor who evaluates your symptoms and comes up with a diagnosis. A PCR test then may be done as a confirmatory test rather than a diagnostic tool. The big issue we are having now is that we have relied too heavily on just PCR tests as a diagnostic tool. It's one of the reasons why we have essentially botched the categories of presymptomatic and asymptomatic.
If someone does not present with symptoms can you reliably diagnose them as being ill?
Glad you are among the healthy. Excellent substack.
Thank you! It wasn't too bad for me but I know of some people who really got the flu-like symptoms. It's interesting how varied the dynamics can be, although there's always a rational reason for such variety.
I’m not sure how you were diagnosed with Omnicron as there are no current lab tests that differentiate between the strains, aside from gene sequencing based upon computer modeling of the various strains. Genetic sequencing is generally not performed as most state labs don’t have the capability to perform these specialized tests. The CDC when pressed with FOIA requests admitted they have no isolated samples of the “COVID “ virus. I must assume you either have a cold or the flu.
So Omicron follows a similar idea as Alpha in that it contains a 69-70 codon deletion in its spike protein. Alpha had the same deletion, and it apparently caused the S Gene to not amplify during PCR. I've written a bit about this and that the "S Gene Drop" was an indication of Alpha in 2020, and it could be used as an indication for Omicron now, although many labs unfortunately never report their actual Ct Values to patients which means you would have to rely on some assumptions.
Considering that Omicron is the dominant strain and that my symptoms were fairly mild I used those as measures. However, because Omicron is also more of an infection of the upper respiratory tract more people are reporting slightly painful sore throats. I did also use an antigen test, but as it tests for the Nucleocapsid protein there may be overlap with other viruses that may share the same antigen. However, I would say that the evidence would once again point to COVID.
When it comes to state labs, I would suspect that they may outsource the sequencing of their samples, although many states' Department of Health will routinely collect samples for surveillance. It's usually the method used to come up with the % of circulating variant.
It's interesting that they haven't been able to isolate, although part of me suspects this is because they really just have not done a good job all-around! I will say I do believe COVID is a very real virus with a very, very overbearing public health policy that has both gone on for way too long and is far more likely to have caused more harm than good.
I hear what you are saying, but Dr. Tenpenny clearly stated that they can not differentiate between the so called strains and that genetic sequencing is required which they are definitely not doing. I do understand that so called Omnicron is mild and confined to upper airway and not the lung. Something is causing this,but more evidence is pointing to EMF poisoning due to 5G. I suspect this will the case as no government anywhere around the world has been able to produce evidence of virus isolation using Koch’s gold standard.
I have been considering your comments this morning and I have viewed the FOIA request. My main issue with the FOIA is that they requested information on the COVID-19 virus (which absolutely does not exist). The disease called COVID-19 is caused by a virus named Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2 for short) - is this mincing words ... absolutely. The FOIA also requests info on a virus isolated via maceration, filtration and ultracentrifugation (just looking through some basic virology and those methods don't appear to be commonly used to "isolate" a virus). I would also argue that Koch's postulates really don't apply to viruses. Viruses are neither living or dead. They cannot be spread on an agar plate and grow as a bacteria would. They can only really do anything once they gain entry into a host. Here is a fascinating article on the Rivers/Koch postulates: https://viroliegy.com/2021/10/18/thomas-rivers-revision-of-kochs-postulates-1937/. Science is really messy! Here is a link to the Genbank entry for the "supposed" SARS-COV-2 isolate obtained by the CDC: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT020880.1/