“The fact is that all Americans citizens who test are still at risk of their own personal lockdown.”

So Biden is overly jabbed. Yet he had COVID-19. Again. Or did he? Testing for COVID-19 is a rat’s nest, as I’ve said since April 2020. The first error is equating a positive test result with the presence of the virus. [Stay focused: This is not that hopeless “the virus does not exist” fool’s errand that has been repeatedly addressed by me and others].

The second error is equating the presence of the virus with COVID-19.

The first error is made whenever someone who does not have active viral replication tests positive using any of the tests. Accordingly, to this flailing attempt by CNN to repair the Biden administration’s reputation (there’s even going to be a Rose Garden Ceremony!), Biden swiped his own nose and 15 minutes later, the test came back positive.

That is almost certainly an antigen test. Which is not free from false positive results. Due to the non-specificity of the antigen detection, some COVID-19 antigen tests can light up positive if the patient is infected with other respiratory pathogens. Read the package inserts for details.

The self-inflicted wound that the Biden administration is suffering is inherent in the CNN article, right in the title itself:

According to the article, because Uncle Sniffy tested positive, who the article starts off describing as a “fatigued, runny-nosed Joe Biden” reports that

“The brutal months that came before had lent the Biden presidency a sense of gloom, fueled by high prices, abysmal approval numbers and swirling questions about the President's ability to lead. Many problems -- like a growing outbreak of monkeypox, the war in Ukraine and shortages of baby formula -- still persist, and a new crisis is emerging with China. Democrats running for office this year are still putting distance between themselves and the President.”

There are so many layers here to unpack. I’ll leave the political questions to the politicos. But “a growing outbreak of monkeypox”? So many layers.

This article is about testing, so back to the testing:

“At 9:12 a.m. ET, Biden swiped his nose with a cotton swab and hoped for the best. It was officially his sixth day isolating with Covid-19. His symptoms had disappeared. He'd started working out again in the White House gym.”

President Joe Biden removes his face mask as he arrives to speak about the economy during a meeting with CEOs in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Thursday, July 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Someone needs to tell Joe how surgeons don and doff masks. Hint: No repeat use.

Biden then tested positive again, after Paxlovid, an outcome that Joe evidently was always in the now was a possibility because his doctors told him so.

From the Pfizer website:

“The FDA has authorized the emergency use of PAXLOVID, an investigational medicine, for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and children (12 years of age and older weighing at least 88 pounds [40 kg]) with a positive test for the virus that causes COVID-19, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death, under an EUA.

PAXLOVID is investigational because it is still being studied. There is limited information about the safety and effectiveness of using PAXLOVID to treat people with mild-to-moderate COVID‑19.”

The fact sheet itself starts:

“You are being given this Fact Sheet because your healthcare provider believes it is necessary to provide you with PAXLOVID for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This Fact Sheet contains information to help you understand the risks and benefits of taking the PAXLOVID you have received or may receive.”

Pardon? Didn’t the website warning say “There is limited information about the safety and effectiveness of using PAXLOVID to treat people with mild-to-moderate COVID‑19?”

So how can an HCP believe it is necessary" for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19?

Anyway, back to testing - Joe’s first test could have been a false positive, and it was self-administered. The article does not say whether the President’s sample was sent out for sequencing to confirm it was not a false positive. Or that his second positive test also could have been a false positive.

Some would still have you believe that PCR testing never had ANY false positives: my experience in clinical biomarker development and my reading of the published scientific literature tells me the best estimate of the PCR False Positive Rate is around 40%. This includes the Marine study that failed to find sequenceable viral DNA in about 40% of the Marines who initially tested positive.

In my written testimony on a restaurant case in Pennsylvania, I provided all of the studies showing PCR false positive rates. I sent my testimony in before I saw the Commonwealth’s “expert” testimony from the state epidemiologist. The state epidemiologist, in her written testimony, had misinformed the court that there were no - zero - clinical false positive results. The judge, for some reason, decided to decline the written testimony from both experts and insisted only on oral testimony, which devolved into an ad hominem attack, leaving the issue of false positives underappreciated by the judge, who ruled the restaurant had to follow state procedures. For my efforts there and as an expert witness in the NVICP, I earned a Wikipedia page that, like the Commonwealth’s lawyer and the “Special Master” of the NVICP, ignores my 20 years of biomedical research experience, including intensive research in biomarker development while faculty in the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh.

The CNN article attempts to portray Biden’s self-isolation as the cause for his administration’s month from hell, spinning the administration’s tailspin into a turn-around because after Joe tested negative, the White House sent a missile into a house in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Joe asked some questions about the ready-made operation.

The only mention of sequencing was whether they had confirmed the death of the intended target by DNA sequencing.

The fact is that all American citizens who test are still at risk of their own personal lockdown, and Joe Biden and every other American are not being told about the risk - and cost - of the false positive result.

To be clear - I’m not saying people should not test. Some doctors I know think no one should test, just treat yourself if you have symptoms.

I think people should test if they want to - once they know the full risks. You can’t take a PCR test result seriously unless you know the cycle threshold cut-off being used to call a positive. And you can’t know that risk and make your own personal assessment of the risk/benefit ratio unless you know the FP rate associated with the kit you’re considering, and the threshold they will apply to your sample.

I am once again, pointing out that the #costofthefalsepositives can be truly made zero by sequencing the virus from clinical samples from patients who test positive either by PCR or by antigen test.

How many more times will America suffer a month from hell because a President tests positive for COVID-19 without any assurance against the 40% false positive rate of the PCR test or a false positive due to non-specificity of an antigen test?

Additional information and resources on the “false positive catastrophe” from Covid-19 testing can be found on Tam Hunt’s MEDIUM.COM page.

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