Just come back to this post via a series of comments elsewhere….
Can I ask what you think of this post about disappearing flu? The quote that gets me is this
‘ Think about this. Nearly seven hundred thousand tests and they are all negative, except one. And that single positive was confirmed to be a true positive. So, there was not one single FALSE positive test result. This just is not possible for any test, as it implies a specificity of 100%, zero chance of cross contamination and perfect laboratory conditions, which we know cannot possibly be true.’
RE your excerpt / quote, the "implication" is based on the assumption that cross-contamination can produce a positive. Besides not necessarily being true, what is cross-contaminating? If there's no flu in humans and no flu in labs being sent to the relevant machines, there are no flu genes to cross-contaminate.
RE the post in general, my critique is contained in the comments. The core premise is that the reason SARS-CoV-2 PCR positives resemble a seasonal respiratory virus is because "this other respiratory virus" is both causing illness and generating PCR positives. But what about being "this other respiratory virus" makes flu genes remotely likely to be amplified by primers for SARS-CoV-2, vs. the tsunami of human and bacterial etc. RNA that is already in every PCR swab? Were the math to be run, flu genes would add 1 maybe-sort-of-close-matches for every 1 million human maybe-sort-of-close-matches. We have loads more genes than flu. So it's a busted theory.
I see what you mean. From the papers, it looks like there's a direct link between proximal Covid disease (as well as postmortem...2022 paper) and disruption of protein creation within organs. I guess he's extrapolating these findings to post Covid infection in general.
I guess the difference I can see being that your Turbo Aging theory sticks to vaccination mediated causes. For Chesnut, it's spike from both vaccination and covid disease resulting in system-wide accelerated aging via fouled up protein transcription. My fear is that what we are seeing in terms of the increases in morbidity/mortality is not limited to the vaccinated...although they may, depending on their lot and/or direct vein administration, more affected and in other ways as a result.
Right, but there's no actual link being suggested between the spike protein and systemic protein translation, as far as I can make out. Maybe I am just getting lost in his presentation style.
It's not super-clear to me what Chesnut is proposing here. All I can make out is an argument sort of going,
1 Genes do stuff
2 ???
3 Turbo aging
I did offer my own take of how a turbo aging effect might be happening - https://unglossed.substack.com/p/on-turbo-aging - that's not to rule out any other mechanism including Chesnut's, but again I'm not really sure what he is suggesting to begin with.
Feb 5, 2023·edited Feb 5, 2023Liked by Brian Mowrey
My problem with using the PCR technique as it is being used to test for covid.
For all other diseases, testing (in the US) in the past was used only if it is the only way to rule in or out a possible cause and the results would change treatment. If the results would not change treatment, no test was given. Example, flu. Every year of my childhood in the US I came down with the flu. However, I have only been tested for flu twice, both of which were as an adult in Japan. How did doctors know I had the flu without testing. They didn’t but it didn’t matter as the treatment for viral respiratory diseases was the same; drink plenty of fluids, get plenty of vitamins and rest, and take medicine for symptom relief only. But all of that come only after I had a fever and the doctors ruled out other possibilities. If there were indications that flu might not be the cause of my symptoms AND testing would change treatment, then other testing would be called for. But the doctor would start with the easiest, least costly and least time consuming to administer test. If that came back positive, more through investigation and further testing would then occur before I would I would be diagnosed.
I gave breast cancer as an example earlier but will give it again, with changes. Judging someone as having covid based solely upon a single positive result of the PCR is the same as diagnosing all who present with a lump in their breast, male and female, as having breast cancer and removing the breast without the required mammogram and biopsy. Madness.
Yet, that is precisely how the PCR is being used. No symptoms but have a positive PCR result? Straight to the covid isolation ward with you to be given treatments that have long been known to have serious adverse effects including death. Pop positive on a single PCR and not only are you isolated from your family and friends and not allowed to earn income, neither are those same family members and friends, if they are close contacts. If the treatment protocols for covid, known to be dangerous, fail or worse actually cause your condition to go south, you are deprived the company of your loved ones as you expire. Same is true if you went to the hospital for a totally unrelated condition. Broke your arm but have no symptoms of any illness whatsoever, you are still give a PCR and a single positive result lands you in the covid isolation ward just as above. In short, a single positive result of the PCR is at best extremely disruptive to the patient and all in their close circle and at worst, deadly.
If the PCR was used as a way to rule out covid for those presenting with symptoms known to be consistent with covid and a positive result was followed up with more rigorous testing and investigation, I would have zero issue with its use in fight covid. But that is not how it is being used. It’s use as THE single “test” to determine if someone goes into isolation and all those close to them into quarantine should be immediately halted.
The most egregious assaults on the PCR+ were after they were already in respiratory distress, showing up to the hospital. After all, before that point they would just be told to go home until they progress. And all the mistreatment after that point here in the US, was incentivized by CARES, and presumably the 'brains' behind that was the same brains behind treating the self-released virus as something to create countermeasures for, including PCR.
But what if it had been different? What if PCR was used to promote early treatment? I don't mean in the Malone biosurveillance and isolation sense but simply, someone is sick, they get the PCR, they get the treatment, they stay out of the hospital to begin with?
So you could say PCR made both worse and better outcomes possible. Which essentially describes all technology.
That's not meant to refute your argument. Just to show how someone could go somewhere else with the same premise. At all events, my post was basically just to address the "plagued by false positives" claims, ie the general myth that PCR "doesn't work."
Feb 5, 2023·edited Feb 5, 2023Liked by Brian Mowrey
Still misused. The most egregious, perhaps, but being forced to self isolate an away from work based solely upon a single PCR + result and all your “contacts” as well is plenty bad. Worse, it was used to drive up “case” numbers which were used to terrify everyone intro excepting the continuing lockdowns and other worse than useless “countermeasures”. We have become accustomed to the most egregious cases to the extent that 2 weeks of isolation now seems like nothing. Imagine what the world would be like today if we didn’t have the “case” numbers reported daily for the better part of three years. They still are reported daily in Japan. It has been a while, perhaps 3 months since I was in Akihabara but when I was, the big “teletron” screen there was still displaying the daily “case” count, based upon a single PCR + result.
Back when the covid death count in the US had recently surpassed 100,000 I found this.
“Dr. Angelo Codevilla -The CDC also adjusted how it began reporting coronavirus deaths, combining them in a new “PIC” category with pneumonia and influenza.”
“That is how the death figure came to exceed 100,000,” Codevilla argues. “But if the CDC had used the same criterion that it did with the SARS virus, namely ‘severe acute respiratory distress syndrome,’ the figure by the end of June would have been some 16,000.”
Italy did similar.
PCR+ played a huge role in that. It was used to support the lie that “Japan was doing it right.”, with the lockdown lite (TM), universal masking, including for Zoom lessons and meetings (still ongoing), “Mokushoku” (eating in silence for school kids and most others, still ongoing after 3 years.), plastic panels and sheeting separating customers from store clerks and even other customers including family members at restaurants, reduced occupancy, and all the rest to pressure the US to follow suit. Japan was not testing at all until the end of 2020 and very little until some time after the start of 2021. But that last fact was left out. Japan masks and all the rest and they have”beaten” covid, the US needs to do the same.
So we have the US and other nations greatly over counting covid deaths by using the PCR on as many bodies as possible; dead, sick and healthy and comparing these numbers with a country that did not yet even have the PCR in country to force through fear the policies we’ve been living under for three years. Or, as in my case, “See, what we are making you do here in Japan works, look at the numbers.” Numbers derived through inappropriate use of PCR outside Japan and it not being used in Japan.
Now that the test is widely used here, man o man, has the “case” numbers soared. No, sky rocketed. So now, in addition to the the required compliance rag, when in person instruction resumes at my med school in April, for the first time in 3 years, we are to also where face shields. “It’s still spreading, It’s still spreading!! We had X numbers of asymptomatic students pop + on the PCR after the last school break. The sky is falling!!!. Oh, wear both for the classes that remain online.” All based upon a single PCR + result from many healthy individuals. This does not end until we diagnose Covid as we do for all other diseases. Except for covid, a single + result is never enough for a diganosis.
The only way a single PCR+ result should be used by itself to lead to treatment is if the test is quick, “cheap”, noninvasive and treatment is as well. Have respiratory difficulties, pop + with the PCR and the medical interview rules out other possibilities, then prescribed “cheap” meds to take care of it. If not better by X number of days, return for further investigation. Once fever breaks, back to work. Close contacts should react as they would if you had the flu. Otherwise, it should be used only the rule out covid if - or to indicate for further testing if +. I think it is an appropriate analogy, so I’ll use it again. Imagine if all presenting with a lump in the breast had the breast removed without any further testing? A single + result on a single test is simply not enough to diagnose anything…..except covid. Or so we are to believe.
PCR used as a (one of several) in a series of methods to determine if a person has covid and I am in 100% agreement. PCR used as the one and only determining “test” for anything, NO.
Ah, glad you have come by - I tried to organize the post to address your email regarding the PCR subject, but have been too busy to reply with the same message.
"Cases" have always been ephemeral and hard to deal with and link to viruses objectively. But inferring infection from X fold rise in antibodies in contexts where symptoms are intrinsically variable, eg for flu and loads of other bugs, has for decades been a common practice when looking at what is happening up-close, like in a specific study.
So the big difference with PCR is scaling that up, creating a "the whole world is a study" system. However, as long as PCR+ is just a more convenient way of measuring the same event that causes x fold rise in antibodies, which in practice it is, then scale is the only difference.
The "PCR is not real" people usually are the same as "viruses are not real" people, ready to shoot a volley of bitchute videos in response to anything.
PCRs CAN have false positives, if the cycle threshold is set too high (over 30-35).
Right - Theoretically, since we're talking about millions of tests and there's always contamination etc. to worry about, there's a "can" at any threshold. But it really can't move the numbers that much outside of the "always rarely" contexts where there are no actual cases. The true positives just flood the false positives and the overall dataset is clean, unless you are _focusing_ on specific contexts where infections are rare.
Almost every post you write causes me cognitive dissonance in the first paragraph. However, by the end of the post, I am always left scratching my head with regard to my previous perspective. This is intended as a compliment. I appreciate your work. 
As someone who did COVID testing it was generally the idea that the tests were very sensitive. Depending on how samples were aliquoted it would be easy to get contamination, usually a random gene would amplify in another sample, or sometimes you'll get a "ring" of amplification suggesting maybe one well may have spilled over into neighboring cells.
In any case, there did appear to be a general idea higher Ct values ran into some issues. Usually at higher ends you may get one gene that amplifies at a lower Ct value, and yet the others may be over the cutoff, so you have to sometimes test again until you get more than 1.
My general belief with the Ct values is that they were derived from a hypothetical "infectious" value of virions. I believe this came from early samples and data from China. But if you assume X virions is enough to become infectious, then the Ct count may be set up with that infectious number in mind.
I think one of the problems with the PCR discussion is that people have a broad idea of what PCR is, but many people may not have spent time actually looking at how it works. I don't think many people know what primers are, or the different genes that can sometimes be amplified.
Everyone sort of knows that PCR amplifies, and the discussion is around whether the amplification is for too long via Ct counts or if the use of PCR would just be wrong.
No, but that seems interesting. From what I recall the Ct cutoff was different depending on the kit, but so too were the genes being amplified and the purification procedures as well, which would also influence PCR results since no two tests would be alike. I'm not sure what initial data was used, but there was a study I looked at early on that designed a PCR test around a handful of positive cases with a set number of virions. That's all I could recall about the situation. I wouldn't be surprised if PCR was not corrected for.
Thanks for your acknowledgement that we are a long way from being sure what and how something was released and expressing your certainty that 'novel natural' is unlikely. Pilot who lives across street from me tested positive about 20 times never once had a symptom. He was in quarantine over and over again earning his full salary. He did get two 'shots' to keep his job. JJ points out that there were lots of manufacturers of PCR tests; they were rushed and pressured for results. I think it reasonable to think many results were inaccurate for many reasons.
20 times! I've eventually come around to the idea that persistent infections are common. The evidence is weak but there is a lot of it.
Of course, I am not totally dismissive of swarms, I just don't think they are as disruptive of the standard interpretation of viral transmission as they seem. But so SARS-CoV-2, even if it always selected for the same genome long term, would have this cloud of potential easy-access mutant versions, and maybe one of them is a "persistent chillaxer variant." These persistent chillaxers could be collectively the reservoir for the long-term genome which itself remains an easy reversion mutation away. Maybe we all have these variants after infection, it's just not usually near the nasal cavity and more in the GI tract or somewhere like that.
In Table 2 of the recent Ghafari, et al preprint only 5.8 to 9 percent of apparent persistent infections self-report long covid. So maybe they are just typhoid mary's who will bring back the virus next season (if we ever go back to having troughs between waves) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.29.23285160v1
Jeez. Imo, it sure would be great to see you and jj debate and discuss your theories on his show.
Failing that, it would still be worth while to see you have a Zoom discussion with Nick (as he requested in the comments section).
The benefit of voice mediated discussion is that it adds nuance, detail, and expression otherwise missed (and/or misinterpreted) in the text mediated format.
I hope you consider engaging these additional forums. Your input is far too important to be confined to Substack alone.
The confining thing! That was the reason for the Can't Have Oppositional Science post that I forgot! Yeah so in a regular blog ecosystem, one way you generate content is to say "look at this writer's post, I disagree with it but here is what it says." And that in turns gets the other writers' post out to people with a different perspective and with a framing that works for them. And everyone is doing that, whether in a "here's an interesting thought" sense or a "what a moron" sense. If you are an interesting moron, you are in the best spot, but either way everyone benefits.
But because in oppositional science, everyone is pretending to have all the answers and always be right, you get none of that kind of dialogue and dissemination of ideas.
Say I have tested positive and 60 days later I am exposed to the virus for some length of time, breathed in the virions for hours, and that same day get tested. I won't test positive? How does that work given high ct levels?
So even when a person is already having virus replicating in their respiratory tract, the nasal PCR doesn't go positive until a certain "stage" of the infection. Perhaps that is also an argument that environmentally breathed in virus won't light up a nasal swab PCR either.
Very good work. Even though I don't like how "infectious clone" is emphasized as if it isn't somehow a thing that creates real virus as a product, I am as I say totally open to the idea of vector spread to explain how the virus was initially released (after a little bit of natural spread from the Wuhan release to Italy and California in late 2019) in so many different places all at once. It's geographically suspicious.
I liked the idea of the separate release in the UK- they also had a very high case rate for a virus that originally was nowhere as infectious as the omicron variant. So yes, right now it looks like Wuhan, Italy, California and UK. Now I’m wondering if maybe NY is going to also be a spot.. maybe I should be looking at South America too?
If I'm understanding correctly, Couey's point is that there isn't just one uniform PCR test that was used everywhere.
It's very possible that there is a version of the PCR test that is reliable in detecting SARS-Cov2 virus, and that this is the version that was in use in the Cleveland Clinic in December through April 2021, the period of the study by Shrestha et al.
But, the fact is that the nationwide PCR testing program was ramped up from nothing in a very short time; numerous companies got involved, many of which are now defunct; and there was no visible means to enforce any sort of consistency or quality control.
Couey's argument is that this means the results of any particular historical PCR test is open to doubt, even if there's nothing wrong with the method when applied correctly; and also that the lack of quality control and consistency was a wide open invitation to deliberate fraud.
The Cleveland Clinic results are consistent with other studies, as I said, and I imagine that most readers have probably encountered consistent messaging since mid-2021 that reinfections have been rare except when Omicron hit. Emphasis in my post is "simple" argument so I used just one example.
Reviewing the Hahn transcript, basically on January 27 the FDA opened up applications for test EUAs, in February the FDA also started reaching out proactively to enlist developers, from February to April the process was the FDA stayed in touch with applying devs as they assessed their access to reagents, with FEMA being enlisted to help ease supply chain crunches; the FDA helped coordinate the use of "contrived" samples for validation, which is when you add virus to uninfected saliva because in the real world it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples when you still don't have the tests yet; and then validation was done on the "back end," ie now here's this deployed test and they keep in touch with how it is performing IRL, review after 3 weeks. So sort of like "natural selection for PCR," the ones that were good at doing the job were kept, the others not. The announcement to go with back-end testing was in late Feb.
When variants were found that elude recommended primers, recommendations were updated. And etc.
This is kind of how a lot of stuff in genetics work, it's iterative, there's some chicken and egg -ness at first, but you use it in the real world and that's the validation. So basically the same argument I make in this post, you can say it shouldn't work in theory but the reality is that it works.
Conversely you can say that it should work in theory, but it might not work if the people operating the system were incompetent and/or criminal. Perhaps the reality is we don't know how well it worked in practice? I assume it's true that reinfections were rare IRL before Omicron (and the advent of multiple boosters) but maybe most people didn't test unless they were sick. So I'm not sure this can be taken as proof that there were few or no false positives from the tests.
It's interesting that you mention "IRL it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples." So you're saying that the tests were validated using "infectious clones", right? Isn't that suspicious? And could it lead to a gray area of "false positives" for coronaviruses other than SARS-Cov2 that were never checked during the validation process?
I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between the "bioweapons bore" hypothesis that you and Nick Hudson are promoting, vs. Couey's theory that the SARS-Cov2 virus is replication incompetent. It's possible that I'm imagining a version of Couey's theory, that he hasn't actually stated.
In the interview with Crawford, Couey showed slides arguing that the vast majority of RNA produced during the replication process is defective in some way: either fragmentary, or miscopied.
But this isn't necessarily incompatible with genetic stability -- the crucial question is whether the process creates enough intact virus to sustain the infection process. I don't know the actual numbers, but: if a single virus particle is copied a million times, and only ten of them succeed in infecting another cell, you still have a rapid chain reaction.
So I'm imagining that if a person is infected by direct exposure to an "infectious clone", the amount of intact virus in that person's sputum might be relatively enriched compared to another person who was infected only second-hand by exposure to a sick person. Perhaps at each hop from one person to the next, the concentration of infectious virus deteriorates?
There's been an impression during this pandemic, that the virus has always had a very high R0 (transmissibility, with each sick person infecting many more) and that the R0 has been continually increasing with each new variant.
But perhaps R0 has been over-estimated because: (1) many people were infected initially by direct exposure to lab-released infectious clone, creating the impression of a rapidly expanding epidemic; (2) many more were exposed to high levels of replication-incompetent but immunogenic virions from the directly infected group, and got counted as cases even if they didn't have infections; and (3) sputum from group (1) was also highly infectious, leading to many cases of secondary infections? But the concentration of replication-competent virus in the sputum of that next group would be smaller, so persons in contact with that group would be less likely to get sick.
What I'm trying to say here is that perhaps for GOF viruses or otherwise lab-manipulated would-be bioweapons, the R0 appears high at first, but rapidly deteriorates to below one. So the epidemic dies out, and needs to be re-ignited with another lab release of infectious clone virus.
Whereas with a real, highly evolved natural virus, the RNA swarm and associated epigenetic environment has mastered the trick of maintaining R0 above 1.0 on a sustained basis?
Is this what you're saying? Do you think it might be what Couey is saying?
I endorse your version of the theory. This is where I was going with https://unglossed.substack.com/p/all-sars-cov-2-clades-fade-out - again, the issue is the building blocks that go between A and D. If the building block says "RNA viruses can't have stable genomes," then that's false, they can. If it says "lets be suspicious that this RNA virus arriving from nowhere can sustain transmission, because there is no precedent for that," good. People can pick whichever framing they like.
As you can see in the gif animation, "every new scariant is 100x as fit as the last" is indeed seemingly an artifact of previous scariants losing steam. As if they were ink-strokes on a zen board app, bold for a second and then fading out. The pattern with the BA.2 and BA.5 clades can be imagined as replicating what the grey dots from the pre-VOC clades looked like.
But how can you even use evidence like this if you've brought in notions like sequencing being inaccurate, in which case the evidence of clades fading out doesn't work? So you lose the ability to actually use the genetic evidence at all to prove anything. You end up with just a theory, not proof.
So maybe the virus will just go away now, we'll see. I honestly don't know what to expect because my model still lands with "not sure which"
I just ran across this Substack that seems to represent a reliable first-hand source covering China's battle with Covid-19. Starting with a relatively successful program to contain OG Covid in Wuhan and Hubei Province; continuing into increasingly draconian and yet futile measures against Omicron in Shanghai; and finally, giving up and letting the virus sweep across the entire remaining population in a few weeks.
Anecdotally, it seems that about half the population was sick at once. This Substack author gives a convincing argument that the PCR and antigen tests were fairly reliable with low false positives throughout the ordeal, and that Omicron with an R0 of at least 10 (probably 20) was un-stoppable.
It's hard to see how this could be faked with multiple releases of infectious clone virus.
I read the articles "Background Info Part 1", "When the Commissar Came to Shanghai", "Tragedy & Hope in Shanghai", "Shanghai video overwhelms censor, gets 400M views", "Beijing goes into self-lockdown", "Open Thread" and "Lessons to be learned from China's massive covid control experiment."
As far as faking such a huge explosion of cases, this was brought up by McCairn and Rixey in their recent video in which they seemed exasperated with the IC thing. McCairn is in Japan so he's seen the same thing play out as in China, just it got started earlier. I'm about to post a response to their chat.
One thing I'll note about Couey, is that when I was watching his streams in late 2021 he was still presenting a framework where 2020 infectious removed susceptibles. i.e., not really absorbing the fact that more Americans were dying at that time than had in 2020. So I don't know to what extent if any he is incorporating any case patterns from after 2020 into his model, even today.
"How can you even use evidence like this if you've brought in notions like sequencing being inaccurate?" Good question. I don't understand at all, why Couey seems to be skeptical about the sequencing data, or why he's been questioning whether the variants exist at all.
I guess I should ask him myself. He doesn't have a substack or comments section on his twitch channel, but maybe he'd answer an email? Or maybe I'll wait a while and see if you can get together with him for an interview somewhere.
"might not work if the people operating the system were incompetent and/or criminal." In which case, again, you would expect fabrication of reinfections. The science journalism machine was totally brought on board with saying falsely that natural immunity didn't work.
If they were going to fake anything with PCR, it would have been that. But they couldn't because PCR didn't support the narrative, so they went with antibody neutralization instead "the difference in immune response between vaccination and infection seems to be even greater when dealing with new variants. [...]Researchers looked at how antibodies bind to new variants of the coronavirus and found that people who were previously infected with coronavirus might be susceptible to the new strains, while people who were vaccinated were more likely to be protected." https://qz.com/2033075/covid-19-vaccine-is-crucial-in-the-fight-against-delta-variant - blatant lies, right? So where are the falsified reinfection PCR+s? They don't exist.
""IRL it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples." So you're saying that the tests were validated using "infectious clones", right?" And/or cultured virus. I mean do I think that the same government who created the virus was back-dooring some product for the PCR dev? Definitely could have happened, though the dev was still sluggish if that was the case. (And I still don't like the term IC, prefer DNA<>virus because that's what you have going on.) But overall it's a pretty anodyne detail. Setting up a system for mailing in virus samples becomes easy when you have PCR. It's doable without PCR but only if sick people are near a university that can construct a culture neutralization / inhibition assay. Otherwise what are you going to do? Tell people to send whatever they have and it turns out 99% of shipments are the wrong bug? So you need contrived samples if you want more than one or two devs to actually be moving toward the finish line.
Thanks! You are convincing me that Couey's theory about bogus PCR testing is not all that likely.
Which means that all those people who tested positive, really did manage to get themselves exposed to SARS-Cov2 somehow, and that random other coronaviruses weren't playing a major role. Actually I must admit I'm relieved to have my previously held views re-affirmed.
Can PCR tell me if I've been exposed to oxygen? Will I be protected from future positives?
Nein, tut mir leid
Just come back to this post via a series of comments elsewhere….
Can I ask what you think of this post about disappearing flu? The quote that gets me is this
‘ Think about this. Nearly seven hundred thousand tests and they are all negative, except one. And that single positive was confirmed to be a true positive. So, there was not one single FALSE positive test result. This just is not possible for any test, as it implies a specificity of 100%, zero chance of cross contamination and perfect laboratory conditions, which we know cannot possibly be true.’
It’s from this substack
https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/peek-a-boo-flu
Thanks
RE your excerpt / quote, the "implication" is based on the assumption that cross-contamination can produce a positive. Besides not necessarily being true, what is cross-contaminating? If there's no flu in humans and no flu in labs being sent to the relevant machines, there are no flu genes to cross-contaminate.
RE the post in general, my critique is contained in the comments. The core premise is that the reason SARS-CoV-2 PCR positives resemble a seasonal respiratory virus is because "this other respiratory virus" is both causing illness and generating PCR positives. But what about being "this other respiratory virus" makes flu genes remotely likely to be amplified by primers for SARS-CoV-2, vs. the tsunami of human and bacterial etc. RNA that is already in every PCR swab? Were the math to be run, flu genes would add 1 maybe-sort-of-close-matches for every 1 million human maybe-sort-of-close-matches. We have loads more genes than flu. So it's a busted theory.
I see what you mean. From the papers, it looks like there's a direct link between proximal Covid disease (as well as postmortem...2022 paper) and disruption of protein creation within organs. I guess he's extrapolating these findings to post Covid infection in general.
I guess the difference I can see being that your Turbo Aging theory sticks to vaccination mediated causes. For Chesnut, it's spike from both vaccination and covid disease resulting in system-wide accelerated aging via fouled up protein transcription. My fear is that what we are seeing in terms of the increases in morbidity/mortality is not limited to the vaccinated...although they may, depending on their lot and/or direct vein administration, more affected and in other ways as a result.
Right, but there's no actual link being suggested between the spike protein and systemic protein translation, as far as I can make out. Maybe I am just getting lost in his presentation style.
Brian, please say this can't be so...https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/urgentbreaking-updated-summation
It's not super-clear to me what Chesnut is proposing here. All I can make out is an argument sort of going,
1 Genes do stuff
2 ???
3 Turbo aging
I did offer my own take of how a turbo aging effect might be happening - https://unglossed.substack.com/p/on-turbo-aging - that's not to rule out any other mechanism including Chesnut's, but again I'm not really sure what he is suggesting to begin with.
My problem with using the PCR technique as it is being used to test for covid.
For all other diseases, testing (in the US) in the past was used only if it is the only way to rule in or out a possible cause and the results would change treatment. If the results would not change treatment, no test was given. Example, flu. Every year of my childhood in the US I came down with the flu. However, I have only been tested for flu twice, both of which were as an adult in Japan. How did doctors know I had the flu without testing. They didn’t but it didn’t matter as the treatment for viral respiratory diseases was the same; drink plenty of fluids, get plenty of vitamins and rest, and take medicine for symptom relief only. But all of that come only after I had a fever and the doctors ruled out other possibilities. If there were indications that flu might not be the cause of my symptoms AND testing would change treatment, then other testing would be called for. But the doctor would start with the easiest, least costly and least time consuming to administer test. If that came back positive, more through investigation and further testing would then occur before I would I would be diagnosed.
I gave breast cancer as an example earlier but will give it again, with changes. Judging someone as having covid based solely upon a single positive result of the PCR is the same as diagnosing all who present with a lump in their breast, male and female, as having breast cancer and removing the breast without the required mammogram and biopsy. Madness.
Yet, that is precisely how the PCR is being used. No symptoms but have a positive PCR result? Straight to the covid isolation ward with you to be given treatments that have long been known to have serious adverse effects including death. Pop positive on a single PCR and not only are you isolated from your family and friends and not allowed to earn income, neither are those same family members and friends, if they are close contacts. If the treatment protocols for covid, known to be dangerous, fail or worse actually cause your condition to go south, you are deprived the company of your loved ones as you expire. Same is true if you went to the hospital for a totally unrelated condition. Broke your arm but have no symptoms of any illness whatsoever, you are still give a PCR and a single positive result lands you in the covid isolation ward just as above. In short, a single positive result of the PCR is at best extremely disruptive to the patient and all in their close circle and at worst, deadly.
If the PCR was used as a way to rule out covid for those presenting with symptoms known to be consistent with covid and a positive result was followed up with more rigorous testing and investigation, I would have zero issue with its use in fight covid. But that is not how it is being used. It’s use as THE single “test” to determine if someone goes into isolation and all those close to them into quarantine should be immediately halted.
The most egregious assaults on the PCR+ were after they were already in respiratory distress, showing up to the hospital. After all, before that point they would just be told to go home until they progress. And all the mistreatment after that point here in the US, was incentivized by CARES, and presumably the 'brains' behind that was the same brains behind treating the self-released virus as something to create countermeasures for, including PCR.
But what if it had been different? What if PCR was used to promote early treatment? I don't mean in the Malone biosurveillance and isolation sense but simply, someone is sick, they get the PCR, they get the treatment, they stay out of the hospital to begin with?
So you could say PCR made both worse and better outcomes possible. Which essentially describes all technology.
That's not meant to refute your argument. Just to show how someone could go somewhere else with the same premise. At all events, my post was basically just to address the "plagued by false positives" claims, ie the general myth that PCR "doesn't work."
Still misused. The most egregious, perhaps, but being forced to self isolate an away from work based solely upon a single PCR + result and all your “contacts” as well is plenty bad. Worse, it was used to drive up “case” numbers which were used to terrify everyone intro excepting the continuing lockdowns and other worse than useless “countermeasures”. We have become accustomed to the most egregious cases to the extent that 2 weeks of isolation now seems like nothing. Imagine what the world would be like today if we didn’t have the “case” numbers reported daily for the better part of three years. They still are reported daily in Japan. It has been a while, perhaps 3 months since I was in Akihabara but when I was, the big “teletron” screen there was still displaying the daily “case” count, based upon a single PCR + result.
Back when the covid death count in the US had recently surpassed 100,000 I found this.
“Dr. Angelo Codevilla -The CDC also adjusted how it began reporting coronavirus deaths, combining them in a new “PIC” category with pneumonia and influenza.”
“That is how the death figure came to exceed 100,000,” Codevilla argues. “But if the CDC had used the same criterion that it did with the SARS virus, namely ‘severe acute respiratory distress syndrome,’ the figure by the end of June would have been some 16,000.”
Italy did similar.
PCR+ played a huge role in that. It was used to support the lie that “Japan was doing it right.”, with the lockdown lite (TM), universal masking, including for Zoom lessons and meetings (still ongoing), “Mokushoku” (eating in silence for school kids and most others, still ongoing after 3 years.), plastic panels and sheeting separating customers from store clerks and even other customers including family members at restaurants, reduced occupancy, and all the rest to pressure the US to follow suit. Japan was not testing at all until the end of 2020 and very little until some time after the start of 2021. But that last fact was left out. Japan masks and all the rest and they have”beaten” covid, the US needs to do the same.
So we have the US and other nations greatly over counting covid deaths by using the PCR on as many bodies as possible; dead, sick and healthy and comparing these numbers with a country that did not yet even have the PCR in country to force through fear the policies we’ve been living under for three years. Or, as in my case, “See, what we are making you do here in Japan works, look at the numbers.” Numbers derived through inappropriate use of PCR outside Japan and it not being used in Japan.
Now that the test is widely used here, man o man, has the “case” numbers soared. No, sky rocketed. So now, in addition to the the required compliance rag, when in person instruction resumes at my med school in April, for the first time in 3 years, we are to also where face shields. “It’s still spreading, It’s still spreading!! We had X numbers of asymptomatic students pop + on the PCR after the last school break. The sky is falling!!!. Oh, wear both for the classes that remain online.” All based upon a single PCR + result from many healthy individuals. This does not end until we diagnose Covid as we do for all other diseases. Except for covid, a single + result is never enough for a diganosis.
The only way a single PCR+ result should be used by itself to lead to treatment is if the test is quick, “cheap”, noninvasive and treatment is as well. Have respiratory difficulties, pop + with the PCR and the medical interview rules out other possibilities, then prescribed “cheap” meds to take care of it. If not better by X number of days, return for further investigation. Once fever breaks, back to work. Close contacts should react as they would if you had the flu. Otherwise, it should be used only the rule out covid if - or to indicate for further testing if +. I think it is an appropriate analogy, so I’ll use it again. Imagine if all presenting with a lump in the breast had the breast removed without any further testing? A single + result on a single test is simply not enough to diagnose anything…..except covid. Or so we are to believe.
PCR used as a (one of several) in a series of methods to determine if a person has covid and I am in 100% agreement. PCR used as the one and only determining “test” for anything, NO.
"This post will discuss my simple argument for why PCR tests are, on balance, accurate."
My concern is that it invalidates a lot of previous studies on epidemiology because it completely redefines the notion of cases.
Until the Covid-19 nonsense, a case was someone with symptoms. However, as far as I know, when you get a PCR test they do not ask you about symptoms.
It seems perfectly possible that people have live and dead viruses in the nasal Schwab that was taken without them actually having any symptoms.
That would seem to bias the number way up.
Now, I will go read your whole posting to see what you actually said :-)
Ah, glad you have come by - I tried to organize the post to address your email regarding the PCR subject, but have been too busy to reply with the same message.
"Cases" have always been ephemeral and hard to deal with and link to viruses objectively. But inferring infection from X fold rise in antibodies in contexts where symptoms are intrinsically variable, eg for flu and loads of other bugs, has for decades been a common practice when looking at what is happening up-close, like in a specific study.
So the big difference with PCR is scaling that up, creating a "the whole world is a study" system. However, as long as PCR+ is just a more convenient way of measuring the same event that causes x fold rise in antibodies, which in practice it is, then scale is the only difference.
I was not aware you had spoken at RTE (in some fashion) and didn't get to present your position. Interesting.
That's show-biz...
Or something.
The "PCR is not real" people usually are the same as "viruses are not real" people, ready to shoot a volley of bitchute videos in response to anything.
PCRs CAN have false positives, if the cycle threshold is set too high (over 30-35).
Right - Theoretically, since we're talking about millions of tests and there's always contamination etc. to worry about, there's a "can" at any threshold. But it really can't move the numbers that much outside of the "always rarely" contexts where there are no actual cases. The true positives just flood the false positives and the overall dataset is clean, unless you are _focusing_ on specific contexts where infections are rare.
Almost every post you write causes me cognitive dissonance in the first paragraph. However, by the end of the post, I am always left scratching my head with regard to my previous perspective. This is intended as a compliment. I appreciate your work. 
Thanks!
As someone who did COVID testing it was generally the idea that the tests were very sensitive. Depending on how samples were aliquoted it would be easy to get contamination, usually a random gene would amplify in another sample, or sometimes you'll get a "ring" of amplification suggesting maybe one well may have spilled over into neighboring cells.
In any case, there did appear to be a general idea higher Ct values ran into some issues. Usually at higher ends you may get one gene that amplifies at a lower Ct value, and yet the others may be over the cutoff, so you have to sometimes test again until you get more than 1.
My general belief with the Ct values is that they were derived from a hypothetical "infectious" value of virions. I believe this came from early samples and data from China. But if you assume X virions is enough to become infectious, then the Ct count may be set up with that infectious number in mind.
I think one of the problems with the PCR discussion is that people have a broad idea of what PCR is, but many people may not have spent time actually looking at how it works. I don't think many people know what primers are, or the different genes that can sometimes be amplified.
Everyone sort of knows that PCR amplifies, and the discussion is around whether the amplification is for too long via Ct counts or if the use of PCR would just be wrong.
Have you read the Hahn transcript? It casts the calibration as provisional. They became aware of asymptomatic infections during the EUA application rounds, and that influenced decisions, but Hahn doesn't specify in what particular way. He's just making some generally sensible comments about how the process is nuanced, not really revealing anything. That's on page 50 https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/2022.01.28.SSCC%20Interview%20of%20Stephen%20Hahn%20-%20Redacted.pdf
No, but that seems interesting. From what I recall the Ct cutoff was different depending on the kit, but so too were the genes being amplified and the purification procedures as well, which would also influence PCR results since no two tests would be alike. I'm not sure what initial data was used, but there was a study I looked at early on that designed a PCR test around a handful of positive cases with a set number of virions. That's all I could recall about the situation. I wouldn't be surprised if PCR was not corrected for.
Thanks for your acknowledgement that we are a long way from being sure what and how something was released and expressing your certainty that 'novel natural' is unlikely. Pilot who lives across street from me tested positive about 20 times never once had a symptom. He was in quarantine over and over again earning his full salary. He did get two 'shots' to keep his job. JJ points out that there were lots of manufacturers of PCR tests; they were rushed and pressured for results. I think it reasonable to think many results were inaccurate for many reasons.
20 times! I've eventually come around to the idea that persistent infections are common. The evidence is weak but there is a lot of it.
Of course, I am not totally dismissive of swarms, I just don't think they are as disruptive of the standard interpretation of viral transmission as they seem. But so SARS-CoV-2, even if it always selected for the same genome long term, would have this cloud of potential easy-access mutant versions, and maybe one of them is a "persistent chillaxer variant." These persistent chillaxers could be collectively the reservoir for the long-term genome which itself remains an easy reversion mutation away. Maybe we all have these variants after infection, it's just not usually near the nasal cavity and more in the GI tract or somewhere like that.
In Table 2 of the recent Ghafari, et al preprint only 5.8 to 9 percent of apparent persistent infections self-report long covid. So maybe they are just typhoid mary's who will bring back the virus next season (if we ever go back to having troughs between waves) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.29.23285160v1
Jeez. Imo, it sure would be great to see you and jj debate and discuss your theories on his show.
Failing that, it would still be worth while to see you have a Zoom discussion with Nick (as he requested in the comments section).
The benefit of voice mediated discussion is that it adds nuance, detail, and expression otherwise missed (and/or misinterpreted) in the text mediated format.
I hope you consider engaging these additional forums. Your input is far too important to be confined to Substack alone.
Anyhow, that's my two cents. For what it's worth.
We'll see what happens and how it goes!
The confining thing! That was the reason for the Can't Have Oppositional Science post that I forgot! Yeah so in a regular blog ecosystem, one way you generate content is to say "look at this writer's post, I disagree with it but here is what it says." And that in turns gets the other writers' post out to people with a different perspective and with a framing that works for them. And everyone is doing that, whether in a "here's an interesting thought" sense or a "what a moron" sense. If you are an interesting moron, you are in the best spot, but either way everyone benefits.
But because in oppositional science, everyone is pretending to have all the answers and always be right, you get none of that kind of dialogue and dissemination of ideas.
Say I have tested positive and 60 days later I am exposed to the virus for some length of time, breathed in the virions for hours, and that same day get tested. I won't test positive? How does that work given high ct levels?
Well, we don't really know the kinetics of infection. We just have little glimpses.
I would say, when studies use both oral and nasal swabs in a serial screening session, saliva is sometimes positive a few days before nasal swab, eg fig 1 a and b of https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262701v1.full.pdf
So even when a person is already having virus replicating in their respiratory tract, the nasal PCR doesn't go positive until a certain "stage" of the infection. Perhaps that is also an argument that environmentally breathed in virus won't light up a nasal swab PCR either.
Hi Brian,
Just saw this interesting thread about the spread of covid in2020... I think you will like it
https://twitter.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1621726974929694721
Very good work. Even though I don't like how "infectious clone" is emphasized as if it isn't somehow a thing that creates real virus as a product, I am as I say totally open to the idea of vector spread to explain how the virus was initially released (after a little bit of natural spread from the Wuhan release to Italy and California in late 2019) in so many different places all at once. It's geographically suspicious.
Just saw this jikkyleaks post - Ecohealth was looking at aerosol applications too in 2019..
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1622062038246912000
I liked the idea of the separate release in the UK- they also had a very high case rate for a virus that originally was nowhere as infectious as the omicron variant. So yes, right now it looks like Wuhan, Italy, California and UK. Now I’m wondering if maybe NY is going to also be a spot.. maybe I should be looking at South America too?
Great suggestion- do you have any links to the earliest cases? Were there some clusters?
I found this article- it does seem linked to thc vaping products. It’s a reach but that would be an interesting way to spread covid.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p1028-first-analysis-lung-injury-deaths.html
If I'm understanding correctly, Couey's point is that there isn't just one uniform PCR test that was used everywhere.
It's very possible that there is a version of the PCR test that is reliable in detecting SARS-Cov2 virus, and that this is the version that was in use in the Cleveland Clinic in December through April 2021, the period of the study by Shrestha et al.
But, the fact is that the nationwide PCR testing program was ramped up from nothing in a very short time; numerous companies got involved, many of which are now defunct; and there was no visible means to enforce any sort of consistency or quality control.
Couey's argument is that this means the results of any particular historical PCR test is open to doubt, even if there's nothing wrong with the method when applied correctly; and also that the lack of quality control and consistency was a wide open invitation to deliberate fraud.
The Cleveland Clinic results are consistent with other studies, as I said, and I imagine that most readers have probably encountered consistent messaging since mid-2021 that reinfections have been rare except when Omicron hit. Emphasis in my post is "simple" argument so I used just one example.
Reviewing the Hahn transcript, basically on January 27 the FDA opened up applications for test EUAs, in February the FDA also started reaching out proactively to enlist developers, from February to April the process was the FDA stayed in touch with applying devs as they assessed their access to reagents, with FEMA being enlisted to help ease supply chain crunches; the FDA helped coordinate the use of "contrived" samples for validation, which is when you add virus to uninfected saliva because in the real world it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples when you still don't have the tests yet; and then validation was done on the "back end," ie now here's this deployed test and they keep in touch with how it is performing IRL, review after 3 weeks. So sort of like "natural selection for PCR," the ones that were good at doing the job were kept, the others not. The announcement to go with back-end testing was in late Feb.
When variants were found that elude recommended primers, recommendations were updated. And etc.
This is kind of how a lot of stuff in genetics work, it's iterative, there's some chicken and egg -ness at first, but you use it in the real world and that's the validation. So basically the same argument I make in this post, you can say it shouldn't work in theory but the reality is that it works.
Conversely you can say that it should work in theory, but it might not work if the people operating the system were incompetent and/or criminal. Perhaps the reality is we don't know how well it worked in practice? I assume it's true that reinfections were rare IRL before Omicron (and the advent of multiple boosters) but maybe most people didn't test unless they were sick. So I'm not sure this can be taken as proof that there were few or no false positives from the tests.
It's interesting that you mention "IRL it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples." So you're saying that the tests were validated using "infectious clones", right? Isn't that suspicious? And could it lead to a gray area of "false positives" for coronaviruses other than SARS-Cov2 that were never checked during the validation process?
I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between the "bioweapons bore" hypothesis that you and Nick Hudson are promoting, vs. Couey's theory that the SARS-Cov2 virus is replication incompetent. It's possible that I'm imagining a version of Couey's theory, that he hasn't actually stated.
In the interview with Crawford, Couey showed slides arguing that the vast majority of RNA produced during the replication process is defective in some way: either fragmentary, or miscopied.
But this isn't necessarily incompatible with genetic stability -- the crucial question is whether the process creates enough intact virus to sustain the infection process. I don't know the actual numbers, but: if a single virus particle is copied a million times, and only ten of them succeed in infecting another cell, you still have a rapid chain reaction.
So I'm imagining that if a person is infected by direct exposure to an "infectious clone", the amount of intact virus in that person's sputum might be relatively enriched compared to another person who was infected only second-hand by exposure to a sick person. Perhaps at each hop from one person to the next, the concentration of infectious virus deteriorates?
There's been an impression during this pandemic, that the virus has always had a very high R0 (transmissibility, with each sick person infecting many more) and that the R0 has been continually increasing with each new variant.
But perhaps R0 has been over-estimated because: (1) many people were infected initially by direct exposure to lab-released infectious clone, creating the impression of a rapidly expanding epidemic; (2) many more were exposed to high levels of replication-incompetent but immunogenic virions from the directly infected group, and got counted as cases even if they didn't have infections; and (3) sputum from group (1) was also highly infectious, leading to many cases of secondary infections? But the concentration of replication-competent virus in the sputum of that next group would be smaller, so persons in contact with that group would be less likely to get sick.
What I'm trying to say here is that perhaps for GOF viruses or otherwise lab-manipulated would-be bioweapons, the R0 appears high at first, but rapidly deteriorates to below one. So the epidemic dies out, and needs to be re-ignited with another lab release of infectious clone virus.
Whereas with a real, highly evolved natural virus, the RNA swarm and associated epigenetic environment has mastered the trick of maintaining R0 above 1.0 on a sustained basis?
Is this what you're saying? Do you think it might be what Couey is saying?
I endorse your version of the theory. This is where I was going with https://unglossed.substack.com/p/all-sars-cov-2-clades-fade-out - again, the issue is the building blocks that go between A and D. If the building block says "RNA viruses can't have stable genomes," then that's false, they can. If it says "lets be suspicious that this RNA virus arriving from nowhere can sustain transmission, because there is no precedent for that," good. People can pick whichever framing they like.
As you can see in the gif animation, "every new scariant is 100x as fit as the last" is indeed seemingly an artifact of previous scariants losing steam. As if they were ink-strokes on a zen board app, bold for a second and then fading out. The pattern with the BA.2 and BA.5 clades can be imagined as replicating what the grey dots from the pre-VOC clades looked like.
But how can you even use evidence like this if you've brought in notions like sequencing being inaccurate, in which case the evidence of clades fading out doesn't work? So you lose the ability to actually use the genetic evidence at all to prove anything. You end up with just a theory, not proof.
So maybe the virus will just go away now, we'll see. I honestly don't know what to expect because my model still lands with "not sure which"
I just ran across this Substack that seems to represent a reliable first-hand source covering China's battle with Covid-19. Starting with a relatively successful program to contain OG Covid in Wuhan and Hubei Province; continuing into increasingly draconian and yet futile measures against Omicron in Shanghai; and finally, giving up and letting the virus sweep across the entire remaining population in a few weeks.
Anecdotally, it seems that about half the population was sick at once. This Substack author gives a convincing argument that the PCR and antigen tests were fairly reliable with low false positives throughout the ordeal, and that Omicron with an R0 of at least 10 (probably 20) was un-stoppable.
It's hard to see how this could be faked with multiple releases of infectious clone virus.
https://austrianchina.substack.com/
I read the articles "Background Info Part 1", "When the Commissar Came to Shanghai", "Tragedy & Hope in Shanghai", "Shanghai video overwhelms censor, gets 400M views", "Beijing goes into self-lockdown", "Open Thread" and "Lessons to be learned from China's massive covid control experiment."
Awesome find - thank you!
As far as faking such a huge explosion of cases, this was brought up by McCairn and Rixey in their recent video in which they seemed exasperated with the IC thing. McCairn is in Japan so he's seen the same thing play out as in China, just it got started earlier. I'm about to post a response to their chat.
One thing I'll note about Couey, is that when I was watching his streams in late 2021 he was still presenting a framework where 2020 infectious removed susceptibles. i.e., not really absorbing the fact that more Americans were dying at that time than had in 2020. So I don't know to what extent if any he is incorporating any case patterns from after 2020 into his model, even today.
"How can you even use evidence like this if you've brought in notions like sequencing being inaccurate?" Good question. I don't understand at all, why Couey seems to be skeptical about the sequencing data, or why he's been questioning whether the variants exist at all.
I guess I should ask him myself. He doesn't have a substack or comments section on his twitch channel, but maybe he'd answer an email? Or maybe I'll wait a while and see if you can get together with him for an interview somewhere.
"might not work if the people operating the system were incompetent and/or criminal." In which case, again, you would expect fabrication of reinfections. The science journalism machine was totally brought on board with saying falsely that natural immunity didn't work.
If they were going to fake anything with PCR, it would have been that. But they couldn't because PCR didn't support the narrative, so they went with antibody neutralization instead "the difference in immune response between vaccination and infection seems to be even greater when dealing with new variants. [...]Researchers looked at how antibodies bind to new variants of the coronavirus and found that people who were previously infected with coronavirus might be susceptible to the new strains, while people who were vaccinated were more likely to be protected." https://qz.com/2033075/covid-19-vaccine-is-crucial-in-the-fight-against-delta-variant - blatant lies, right? So where are the falsified reinfection PCR+s? They don't exist.
""IRL it is difficult to get legitimate infected samples." So you're saying that the tests were validated using "infectious clones", right?" And/or cultured virus. I mean do I think that the same government who created the virus was back-dooring some product for the PCR dev? Definitely could have happened, though the dev was still sluggish if that was the case. (And I still don't like the term IC, prefer DNA<>virus because that's what you have going on.) But overall it's a pretty anodyne detail. Setting up a system for mailing in virus samples becomes easy when you have PCR. It's doable without PCR but only if sick people are near a university that can construct a culture neutralization / inhibition assay. Otherwise what are you going to do? Tell people to send whatever they have and it turns out 99% of shipments are the wrong bug? So you need contrived samples if you want more than one or two devs to actually be moving toward the finish line.
Thanks! You are convincing me that Couey's theory about bogus PCR testing is not all that likely.
Which means that all those people who tested positive, really did manage to get themselves exposed to SARS-Cov2 somehow, and that random other coronaviruses weren't playing a major role. Actually I must admit I'm relieved to have my previously held views re-affirmed.