Don’t Fall for the Fear

It was in February of 2020 that the general public in the US was first made aware of a new and worrisome virus spreading in China called SARS-CoV-2. By March 2020 there was talk by the public health authorities about using PCR to diagnose people who were infected with the virus. I knew immediately that the point was not to diagnose new cases with PCR, but to inflate the number of cases and thus generate fear in the public. PCR cannot possibly diagnose an infection. Its first-time-ever use for that purpose in this new disease was clearly implemented with ulterior motives.

PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction. It is a lab technique used to amplify small fragments of DNA and was first used on a wide scale to measure what is called the “viral load” in patients diagnosed with HIV infection. It was stated explicitly at the time (which was in the 90s when it came into use) that PCR was not to be used to diagnose HIV infection. It was only to use after infection had been established with antibody tests (which are themselves problematic, but I’ll leave that alone for now). To this day the CDC guidelines on diagnosing an HIV infection state that antibody testing, not PCR, is to be used as the first-line test.

Without going into too many details, here’s the crux of the matter. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is said to be about 30,000 bases long (don’t worry about what bases are for now). Once PCR started being used to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 I used the technical specifications of the test to calculated how much of the full virus was being amplified when testing for infection. The answer is a shocking 1.7% of the full virus! In other words, PCR – that test being done when they swab the back of your nasal passage – is able to detect just 1.7% of the full virus. If it happens to detect the presence of that 1.7%, you get diagnosed as being infected with the full 100% of the virus, i.e. you are a “case” of an infection.

I hope you can see how this could/would wildly inflate the number of “cases.” Let’s say I am  exposed to the virus. My immune system mounts a successful response and chops the virus up, rendering it harmless. But one of those chopped up pieces contains the 1.7% of the full virus detected with PCR. I get the nasal swab, it tests “positive” because PCR found that piece, and now I can’t get on a plane, or attend a concert, or go to work. And I get reported as a “case” to the federal health officials, the growing number of which was used to justify the various Draconian public health measures.

And the icing on the cake of deception that was being crafted? Even after antibody tests became available, instructions explicitly said (and still say!) they are not to be used for diagnosing a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Never before had antibody tests been labeled as ineffective for diagnosing a viral infection and PCR labeled as sufficient and accurate to diagnose that same viral infection.

There are other serious problems with using PCR to diagnose an infection, too detailed for me to go into here. The point is that PCR is not a diagnostic test. It cannot determine if a full infectious viral genome is present in someone tested with it. Rest assured that PCR will be used again in the future as a “diagnostic test” for whatever new infection we are all supposed to cower in fear from. Doing so will inflate the case numbers, and thus the fear, of whatever disease it is said to be testing for.

Don’t fall for it. PS. I can’t link you to any article stating that PCR identifies 1.7% of the full SARS-CoV-2 genome. I calculated that myself a few years back. You can verify it by asking the AI of your choice. Grok estimates it at 1-2% of the full genome, which matches my calculation.