161–170 of 236 posts
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/covid-19-spread-from-deer/ If wild animals are regularly spreading Covid to humans, this plus asymptomatic cases means zero Covid strategies never had a chance of working indefinitely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was researched and the results were beyond poor, which is why you never heard about them. IIRC ~75% of PCR positive samples couldn't have any virus cultured from them at all. Viral culturing isn't easy, but PCR tests can trigger on destroyed virus, so it's not a surprise that you can't get replicating virus out of many such samples especially at CT>40. But even if you can grow virus, that doesn't mean someone is i…
I've read several of your responses here, and thanks for the info, but I have to say, your tone comes off as "I know better and would have been more sensible if I were in charge." When you're in the heart of an epidemic that's going to kill millions, you err on the side of caution. Quarantining you at home, for example, makes sense when you're dealing with a deadly disease and you don't know enough to know you're not…
There is far more to life than the prevention of exactly one very specific respiratory illness. If you leave it to only the “experts” the only lessons you’ll get will be so narrowly focused as to be completely useless.
“Experts” never should have been allowed to directly drive public policy. Public policy is a holistic exercise focusing on the big picture, not just one very tiny myopic thing.
An entire generation of kids will grow up forever scarred thanks to the myopic, hysterical actions of these “experts”.
Rapid COVID tests were never really about stopping spread or whatever else they claimed. It was about looking like you were doing something while just getting back to work. We had twice a week testing for over 18 months for work and it was obvious they were naff. For each positive result there were 2-3 who seemed to miraculously be ill but negative around the same time. People would be negative at breakfast and posit…
It's true the tests had false negatives, but they didn't have many false positives. So if you tested positive you knew to take steps to limit exposure to others. Not perfect but not worthless.
Coupled with the fact most took precautions so we had mild cold and flu seasons.
If you had a cough, fever, headache, loss of sense taste/smell take precautions. Don't come into the office.
Guess what, that's precisely the people the test detected except it was delayed!
Asymptomatic? Don't bother testing it probably just gives a false sense of security...
What was useful was testing to end precautions but again..that was very late by the time it was introduced testing had stopped.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also there was an outbreak at a Belgian Antarctic base. Incoming personel took PCR tests, tested negative and were also quarantined for 10 days in South Africa. Then they took an additional PCR test 48h before departure. Six days after arrival there was the first Covid case. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-outbreak-belgian-researc... Of course, certain news outlets like for instance the BBC have failed to disclos…
Interesting. I hadn't heard that one. However it's happened before, in the 1980s. Some researchers who were staying at a British Antarctic base over winter were entirely isolated once the last plane left. Months later they starting coming down with colds, despite none of them being sick originally. Back then epidemiology was a more curious field so this was investigated in some depth. Nobody had opened any new crates…
>WHAT ABOUT SARS-COV-2? CAN IT UNDERGO VIRUS REACTIVATION? >Research on SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, is still ongoing. Infectious Disease specialists are studying its behavior to figure out if this virus can remain latent in the human body. Early research suggests that the virus may cause a latent viral infection, i.e., people who are believed to be cured of COVID-19 may test positive again due to reactivated virus rather than a re-infection. A person with a reactivated infection can potentially cause virus spread.
>COVID “long haulers,” especially previously healthy people who are experiencing long-term symptoms after COVID, are of special interest to scientists. Researchers are trying to figure out whether the continuing symptoms are because their bodies are unable to put the virus into a dormant state. Only time will tell if SARS-CoV-2 is truly a virus that can undergo latent viral reactivation.
What I think really matters for most people is not to find out whether they have covid or not, but whether they are infectious or not. I'd really like to see research (any at all!) into how effective different test methods are at predicting infectiousness and am disappointed that this never seems to get addressed. Because who cares if you're asymptomatic but your viral load is low and you're unlikely to infect others…
It was researched and the results were beyond poor, which is why you never heard about them. IIRC ~75% of PCR positive samples couldn't have any virus cultured from them at all. Viral culturing isn't easy, but PCR tests can trigger on destroyed virus, so it's not a surprise that you can't get replicating virus out of many such samples especially at CT>40. But even if you can grow virus, that doesn't mean someone is i…
Maybe you caught Covid but went asymptomatic because your immune system is just better at handling it? (and PCR tests won't detect it because, as this story says, they miss 90% of asymptomatic cases)
This is hardly unheard of, unexpected or unexplained.
What I think really matters for most people is not to find out whether they have covid or not, but whether they are infectious or not. I'd really like to see research (any at all!) into how effective different test methods are at predicting infectiousness and am disappointed that this never seems to get addressed. Because who cares if you're asymptomatic but your viral load is low and you're unlikely to infect others…
It was researched and the results were beyond poor, which is why you never heard about them. IIRC ~75% of PCR positive samples couldn't have any virus cultured from them at all. Viral culturing isn't easy, but PCR tests can trigger on destroyed virus, so it's not a surprise that you can't get replicating virus out of many such samples especially at CT>40. But even if you can grow virus, that doesn't mean someone is i…
It seems you have been doing in-depth research about Sars-Cov-2/Covid-19, how did you miss the secondary attack rate/household infection rate? It used to be one of the crucial measures of transmission in early 2020, and has been studied for every variant ever since.
What I don't understand is this jump between the complexity of the situation and the simplicity of your conclusions. You go into great length to point out the shortcomings of PCR tests or that 100% susceptibility is an unrealistic modelling assumption, but your interpretations/conclusions are often blanket statements like
> This reveals one of the core scientific problems
> This research wasn't merely unnoticed, it was actively suppressed.
I notice that in your conclusions you tend to lump together very heterogeneous groups, like "scientists", "the media", "government", "the people who run healthcare" - and "they" seem to be responsible for the shortcomings? I find it very puzzling. E.g. scientific consensus is rarely clear-cut, but you will find plenty of papers/opinions arguing for and against something. Same with governments, there are some 200 countries and "they" followed very different policies. Wouldn't it be more convincing to present both evidence for and against a certain hypothesis?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got stuck in the United States, was not allowed to fly back home until I got a negative result on a rapid test. It still took a week to test negative after I'd been symptom free.
Were you a citizen or permanent resident of the country you call home? As far as I know almost no countries put restrictions on their own citizens from returning. Some had quarantine requirements.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was researched and the results were beyond poor, which is why you never heard about them. IIRC ~75% of PCR positive samples couldn't have any virus cultured from them at all. Viral culturing isn't easy, but PCR tests can trigger on destroyed virus, so it's not a surprise that you can't get replicating virus out of many such samples especially at CT>40. But even if you can grow virus, that doesn't mean someone is i…
> How this could happen was never officially explained. Maybe you caught Covid but went asymptomatic because your immune system is just better at handling it? (and PCR tests won't detect it because, as this story says, they miss 90% of asymptomatic cases) This is hardly unheard of, unexpected or unexplained.
Right? Is that not how it went?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
unlikely ≠ won't Defense-in-depth gives a broad range of tactics, and the goal is to combine enough of them to limit risks.
"won't" isn't a reasonable standard. People get sick. You get other people sick. Other people will get you sick. It happens, and completely eliminating every occurrence is not a valid or reasonable goal.
This isn't saying everyone needs to be testing at all times and tests should be 100% effective - some situation require testing, and it'd be nice if it caught asymptomatic covid as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
.... maybe .... It depends on the purpose of the test. For example, a trillion dollar question is still long covid. Very significant numbers of people are on disability right now. About 10% of Americans have some form of long covid, and >1% are unable to work due to long covid (or >2% of the workforce). Long covid comes up even with mild and asymptomatic cases, and seems to have a strong autoimmune component. If you'…
Can long covid be considered post-viral fatigue? I remember being knocked out with Mononucleosis years ago and being tired out for over a month afterwards. Or is long Covid something entirely different?
Like, if I had to bet money on it, I'd wager that "long flu" and even "long cold" are real things that happen at least sometimes, but just haven't gotten much attention (and, to be fair, they might also be less common, or less-commonly-as-severe, if they are real).