Thanks for this post. I was finally getting into understanding how to properly use molecular diagnostics in a clinical laboratory through my job, but then I got “reassigned” due to my unwillingness to take a covid vaccine. One of my favorite parts of my job was helping to design plans for validating LDTs, and I always had questions (largely unanswered by my superiors) about how do we know what we know, how can we successfully defend this test, and how is this test useful in what context… alas, maybe someday I will again work on something like that. Again many thanks for this post, more things to think about and learn on my own.
I would appreciate your opinion. My partner is a surgeon in Mexico. After a two year hiatus she returned to the hospital on Dec 1. She found out that two of her colleagues had developed covid in the past week. She had some very minor symptoms beginning on Monday and a sore throat on Wednesday. A slight cough but nothing out of the ordinary; she has many allergies. She PCR tested Thursday and is positive. I have similar symptoms, runny nose, minor sore throat but I had what appeared to be a bad cold two months ago and the runny nose has continued on and off. I took a rapid antigen test - negative. I've been taking zinc, vitamin c and spending lots of time in the sun cycling. I suspect I may have tested too early for the antigen to be positive but as we both know the PCR could be much too sensitive. Any thoughts?
Do you need to do anything else? If you avoid behaviors that would spread any type of contagious illness and take care of yourself is there really anything else to do?
Undoubtedly not. I have considered taking a pcr test next week. I thought i might have been exposed in the past but the antibody test was negative as well.
We need to just stop testing, period. Let's stop talking about COVID-19! What a concept, right? improve our diets, get exercise, take prophylactics and proper vitamins, and get plenty of sunshine!
Yes, I agree with your assessment. Our state health department sent out text messages to every phone to offer each person up to 8 free tests. It seems like an oversampling bias to encourage asymptomatic testing of an entire population.
Coincidently, there is a meeting this Wednesday to discuss vaccine mandates for children to attend public school and/or day care. I believe they are purposely inflating COVID case numbers to push through their proposed mandates. It's criminal!
James I hope this link is useful. Poster suggests a mechanism for heart damage from vaxxes, but I don't know how to provide the link except posting here! https://twitter.com/Parsifaler
By the way, how do you reconcile that the virus isn’t yet isolated and how does Sanger Sequencing address this concern via Dr Lee? Is it just a triviality? Thanks
Define "isolated?" Certainly the millions of sequences tell us it's real. Also, animal infection leading to disease is established. Recovering the virus and infecting new animals, has been done with beta coronaviruses, includes SCV2 as well. This persistent question has been addressed over and over, yet people keep asking it. Why?
Isolation: Cultivated, Grown, Identified under microscope, Free-form virus, Sequenced by PCR.
There is a large degree of mistrust on all levels during this entire event and whether the virus has been fully isolated is a reverberation of this same deep seated
macro level distrust.
Two camps exist:
Camp A:
If you haven’t isolated the Virus from a single patient, then the virus doesn’t exist! This camp needs to be convinced so it doesn’t sound like the opposition to the narrative is unreasonably founded. This camp is rather large.
Camp B:
No isolation/free form identification from a patient indicates the viral sequence is partially a man made construct and portions of the sequence are ill-defined or subject to interpretation. Also a very large camp.
This division and the wavering between these two camps needs clarification. I’m in contact with many across the spectrum and this issue needs to be put to rest and would be a great achievement to explain in detail but in common language terms.
Example: If I gave ~1,000 isolated/free-form viruses from a patient Vs a nose swab from the same patient (with the many other confounding biological contributions), would any resulting PCR method/result obtained of the full sequence by both be identical or not? If not identical, how much variance? If there was variance, what types of errors are seen and how is each type a problem? Thanks
The camp that continues to claim the virus does not exist is harmful to the credibility of those attacking flawed and errant policies, like mandates. It's noise.
The virus that goes into a patient comes out w/mutations if they have high viremia, no doubt. It's an mRNA virus. The databases are filled w/genomic sequences that are nearly all identical but different as expected by the baseline mutation rate.
It will not be put to rest until it is adequately explained with key title and key common language derivatives. Dr David Martin, who is a key figure in exposing the fraud over a 20 year watch cycle (linguistic-genomics monitor) is promoting this without properly digesting the issue and it’s hard to counterbalance.
This is not resolved!
That we have all this technology but unable to isolate a free-form virus after 20 months weighs heavy and is resolutely a key problem. That there is no desire to isolate individual mutations is another layer of that same problem. That no one wants to explain the ramifications, is yet another layer of the same problem. All three have to be uniquely resolved outside of tight sphere of scientific jargon.
Unfortunately for the main part, this is working against any progress you think you are achieving.
Think of this as an emerging concept, due to this sudden widespread viral awareness, that needs resolve. As it stands, it it’s a genie out of the bottle that needs to be put back in ASAP. There are many dangling lose ends that can all be tied together once and for all.
My understanding is, they would not be identical - in the sense that tissue-specific variations play such a significant role in virus adaptation that the isolated virus would reflect not only the original sample but also the cell culture utilized.
"The 32 consensus genomes revealed the co-existence of different genotypes within the same patient. We further identified 40 intra-host single nucleotide variants (iSNVs). Most (30/40) iSNVs presented in a single patient, while ten iSNVs were found in at least two patients or identical to consensus variants. Comparing allele frequencies of the iSNVs revealed a clear genetic differentiation between intra-host populations from the respiratory tract (RT) and gastrointestinal tract (GIT), mostly driven by bottleneck events during intra-host migrations. Compared to RT populations, the GIT populations showed a better maintenance and rapid development of viral genetic diversity following the suspected intra-host bottlenecks."
Even time of day seems to show significant variations in sampled virus population, within the same host.
But then, it's a matter of definition - if you utilize the average within a sample, or 'consensus', all those variations may simply disappear, and you're left with B1.1.529 or whatever is dominant within the host.
It's very tricky. I think any testing regime would vary depending of what you expect to do with the result. Also, tests should be a complement of a clinical diagnosis. That idea that somebody has co vid, or for that matter any other disease, just because a test say so is a lie, a fraud. Population studies are needed before any diagnostic use. I suspect that was common sense before 2020 when they equated an analytical tool (and a bad one) with a diagnostic tool. I like your idea, much more reasonable than ''test test test!''.
100% yes. Especially the part about sending a sample to Dr. Lee. I had the pleasure of speaking to him at the very beginning of this mess and he did such a good job explaining the issues with the COVID PCR.
People who have not been supplementing vitamin D3 properly for months (70kg bodyweight: 0.125mg 5000 IU / day) have 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels 1/2 to 1/10th of the 50 ng/mL their immune system needs to function properly. When they contract COVID-19, they need much more than an ordinary healthy vitamin D3 daily intake to boost their levels quickly - since those intakes take months to attain the required 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. Calcifediol (25-hydroxyvitamin D) will do it in 4 hours - 1mg single oral dose for 70 kg bodyweight. However, this is rarely available immediately, so bolus vitamin D3 is the other alternative. Please see: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/calcifediol-25-hydroxyvitamin-d-or and "What every MD, immunologist, virologist and epidemiologist should know about vitamin D and the immune system": https://vitamindstopscovid.info/05-mds/ .
I follow FLCCC protocol for covid. I have been a nurse since 1987. I was terminated after 31 years of service at Parrish Medical Center, Titusville, Florida for advocating for ivermectin for a covid patient upon family request. Both doctors involved agreed and the med was ordered. She received one dose. The CEO and CNO terminated me and want my license removed. Let’s continue to fight the good fight for covid patients and stop this hospital homicide. Speak truth in love! I thank each of you that are doing the right thing. Donna
I have a few questions for all the number specialists, table designers and statistics interpreters:
After two years of data accumulation in the context of the ''pandemic'', does it make any sense at all to extract any statement from this mountain of data? Does the result of a data evaluation still serve any truth at all?
Why do I ask? Well, in the meantime there are so many overlaps in the definition of unvaccinated and vaccinated, of recovered and diseased, to which constantly changing definitions differing from country to country are added, that there are no longer any possibilities for comparison with which any trends or conspicuous features can be uncovered. All of the data only creates a nebulous, ever-changing picture that, in its constant succession of snapshots, creates more confusion than clarity.
Does it still somehow make sense to put so much energy into data evaluation day after day, if no one is able to produce ONE clear picture from all the different evaluations that could really help us? I don't want to diminish in any way the efforts and expertise of many people who make their evaluation skills available to the general public on a daily basis, I just wonder what drives you? Do you feel that your efforts are really bearing fruit, that something good is coming out of your work for the community? Something that will expose all those who have been lying to us and leading us around by the nose for months now. Something that many would like to see happen, of course, but is always unlikely to happen - at least that's how I feel.
It seems to me that this is exactly the intention behind all the constantly changing definitions using non-standardized tests with ever questionable interpretations on their part. As if the aim is to generate as much confusion as possible in the data jungle so that the general public completely loses its orientation and at some point stops asking questions altogether.
I would be very interested in your opinion on this and I would like to thank all of you who are always putting so much energy into bringing light into the darkness, even if the darkness never really seems to go away.
'People are, you know, quarantining and it’s disruptive and * I can really do is test. So what would you do?' missing the word *ALL?
yep thanks fixed
Ambulatory care? Perhaps the first step is early treatment, no?
Throw in prophylaxis.
For tx, yep.
That's treatment. I'm dealing w/diagnosis.
Thanks for this post. I was finally getting into understanding how to properly use molecular diagnostics in a clinical laboratory through my job, but then I got “reassigned” due to my unwillingness to take a covid vaccine. One of my favorite parts of my job was helping to design plans for validating LDTs, and I always had questions (largely unanswered by my superiors) about how do we know what we know, how can we successfully defend this test, and how is this test useful in what context… alas, maybe someday I will again work on something like that. Again many thanks for this post, more things to think about and learn on my own.
Get on GETTR?
See you there! https://www.gettr.com/user/lifebiomedguru
I would appreciate your opinion. My partner is a surgeon in Mexico. After a two year hiatus she returned to the hospital on Dec 1. She found out that two of her colleagues had developed covid in the past week. She had some very minor symptoms beginning on Monday and a sore throat on Wednesday. A slight cough but nothing out of the ordinary; she has many allergies. She PCR tested Thursday and is positive. I have similar symptoms, runny nose, minor sore throat but I had what appeared to be a bad cold two months ago and the runny nose has continued on and off. I took a rapid antigen test - negative. I've been taking zinc, vitamin c and spending lots of time in the sun cycling. I suspect I may have tested too early for the antigen to be positive but as we both know the PCR could be much too sensitive. Any thoughts?
Do you need to do anything else? If you avoid behaviors that would spread any type of contagious illness and take care of yourself is there really anything else to do?
Undoubtedly not. I have considered taking a pcr test next week. I thought i might have been exposed in the past but the antibody test was negative as well.
We need to just stop testing, period. Let's stop talking about COVID-19! What a concept, right? improve our diets, get exercise, take prophylactics and proper vitamins, and get plenty of sunshine!
Everyone has lost their damn mind. Thanks for staying sane.
Yes, I agree with your assessment. Our state health department sent out text messages to every phone to offer each person up to 8 free tests. It seems like an oversampling bias to encourage asymptomatic testing of an entire population.
Coincidently, there is a meeting this Wednesday to discuss vaccine mandates for children to attend public school and/or day care. I believe they are purposely inflating COVID case numbers to push through their proposed mandates. It's criminal!
James I hope this link is useful. Poster suggests a mechanism for heart damage from vaxxes, but I don't know how to provide the link except posting here! https://twitter.com/Parsifaler
By the way, how do you reconcile that the virus isn’t yet isolated and how does Sanger Sequencing address this concern via Dr Lee? Is it just a triviality? Thanks
This is my question also.
Define "isolated?" Certainly the millions of sequences tell us it's real. Also, animal infection leading to disease is established. Recovering the virus and infecting new animals, has been done with beta coronaviruses, includes SCV2 as well. This persistent question has been addressed over and over, yet people keep asking it. Why?
Isolation: Cultivated, Grown, Identified under microscope, Free-form virus, Sequenced by PCR.
There is a large degree of mistrust on all levels during this entire event and whether the virus has been fully isolated is a reverberation of this same deep seated
macro level distrust.
Two camps exist:
Camp A:
If you haven’t isolated the Virus from a single patient, then the virus doesn’t exist! This camp needs to be convinced so it doesn’t sound like the opposition to the narrative is unreasonably founded. This camp is rather large.
Camp B:
No isolation/free form identification from a patient indicates the viral sequence is partially a man made construct and portions of the sequence are ill-defined or subject to interpretation. Also a very large camp.
This division and the wavering between these two camps needs clarification. I’m in contact with many across the spectrum and this issue needs to be put to rest and would be a great achievement to explain in detail but in common language terms.
Example: If I gave ~1,000 isolated/free-form viruses from a patient Vs a nose swab from the same patient (with the many other confounding biological contributions), would any resulting PCR method/result obtained of the full sequence by both be identical or not? If not identical, how much variance? If there was variance, what types of errors are seen and how is each type a problem? Thanks
The camp that continues to claim the virus does not exist is harmful to the credibility of those attacking flawed and errant policies, like mandates. It's noise.
The virus that goes into a patient comes out w/mutations if they have high viremia, no doubt. It's an mRNA virus. The databases are filled w/genomic sequences that are nearly all identical but different as expected by the baseline mutation rate.
It will not be put to rest until it is adequately explained with key title and key common language derivatives. Dr David Martin, who is a key figure in exposing the fraud over a 20 year watch cycle (linguistic-genomics monitor) is promoting this without properly digesting the issue and it’s hard to counterbalance.
This is not resolved!
That we have all this technology but unable to isolate a free-form virus after 20 months weighs heavy and is resolutely a key problem. That there is no desire to isolate individual mutations is another layer of that same problem. That no one wants to explain the ramifications, is yet another layer of the same problem. All three have to be uniquely resolved outside of tight sphere of scientific jargon.
Unfortunately for the main part, this is working against any progress you think you are achieving.
Think of this as an emerging concept, due to this sudden widespread viral awareness, that needs resolve. As it stands, it it’s a genie out of the bottle that needs to be put back in ASAP. There are many dangling lose ends that can all be tied together once and for all.
My understanding is, they would not be identical - in the sense that tissue-specific variations play such a significant role in virus adaptation that the isolated virus would reflect not only the original sample but also the cell culture utilized.
"The 32 consensus genomes revealed the co-existence of different genotypes within the same patient. We further identified 40 intra-host single nucleotide variants (iSNVs). Most (30/40) iSNVs presented in a single patient, while ten iSNVs were found in at least two patients or identical to consensus variants. Comparing allele frequencies of the iSNVs revealed a clear genetic differentiation between intra-host populations from the respiratory tract (RT) and gastrointestinal tract (GIT), mostly driven by bottleneck events during intra-host migrations. Compared to RT populations, the GIT populations showed a better maintenance and rapid development of viral genetic diversity following the suspected intra-host bottlenecks."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7898256/
Even time of day seems to show significant variations in sampled virus population, within the same host.
But then, it's a matter of definition - if you utilize the average within a sample, or 'consensus', all those variations may simply disappear, and you're left with B1.1.529 or whatever is dominant within the host.
It's very tricky. I think any testing regime would vary depending of what you expect to do with the result. Also, tests should be a complement of a clinical diagnosis. That idea that somebody has co vid, or for that matter any other disease, just because a test say so is a lie, a fraud. Population studies are needed before any diagnostic use. I suspect that was common sense before 2020 when they equated an analytical tool (and a bad one) with a diagnostic tool. I like your idea, much more reasonable than ''test test test!''.
100% yes. Especially the part about sending a sample to Dr. Lee. I had the pleasure of speaking to him at the very beginning of this mess and he did such a good job explaining the issues with the COVID PCR.
For the lib parents. just tell them the tests are racist and bigoted! His problem solved.
People who have not been supplementing vitamin D3 properly for months (70kg bodyweight: 0.125mg 5000 IU / day) have 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels 1/2 to 1/10th of the 50 ng/mL their immune system needs to function properly. When they contract COVID-19, they need much more than an ordinary healthy vitamin D3 daily intake to boost their levels quickly - since those intakes take months to attain the required 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. Calcifediol (25-hydroxyvitamin D) will do it in 4 hours - 1mg single oral dose for 70 kg bodyweight. However, this is rarely available immediately, so bolus vitamin D3 is the other alternative. Please see: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/calcifediol-25-hydroxyvitamin-d-or and "What every MD, immunologist, virologist and epidemiologist should know about vitamin D and the immune system": https://vitamindstopscovid.info/05-mds/ .
So, does the RAT differenciate between the flu and covid-19?
It should not light up for anything but SCV2, MERS, SCV1 and HKU1. But apparently will test positive with tap water sometimes. Go figure.
I follow FLCCC protocol for covid. I have been a nurse since 1987. I was terminated after 31 years of service at Parrish Medical Center, Titusville, Florida for advocating for ivermectin for a covid patient upon family request. Both doctors involved agreed and the med was ordered. She received one dose. The CEO and CNO terminated me and want my license removed. Let’s continue to fight the good fight for covid patients and stop this hospital homicide. Speak truth in love! I thank each of you that are doing the right thing. Donna
I have a few questions for all the number specialists, table designers and statistics interpreters:
After two years of data accumulation in the context of the ''pandemic'', does it make any sense at all to extract any statement from this mountain of data? Does the result of a data evaluation still serve any truth at all?
Why do I ask? Well, in the meantime there are so many overlaps in the definition of unvaccinated and vaccinated, of recovered and diseased, to which constantly changing definitions differing from country to country are added, that there are no longer any possibilities for comparison with which any trends or conspicuous features can be uncovered. All of the data only creates a nebulous, ever-changing picture that, in its constant succession of snapshots, creates more confusion than clarity.
Does it still somehow make sense to put so much energy into data evaluation day after day, if no one is able to produce ONE clear picture from all the different evaluations that could really help us? I don't want to diminish in any way the efforts and expertise of many people who make their evaluation skills available to the general public on a daily basis, I just wonder what drives you? Do you feel that your efforts are really bearing fruit, that something good is coming out of your work for the community? Something that will expose all those who have been lying to us and leading us around by the nose for months now. Something that many would like to see happen, of course, but is always unlikely to happen - at least that's how I feel.
It seems to me that this is exactly the intention behind all the constantly changing definitions using non-standardized tests with ever questionable interpretations on their part. As if the aim is to generate as much confusion as possible in the data jungle so that the general public completely loses its orientation and at some point stops asking questions altogether.
I would be very interested in your opinion on this and I would like to thank all of you who are always putting so much energy into bringing light into the darkness, even if the darkness never really seems to go away.