Why Is the COVID Case Count So High?

October 11, 2021 By Ted Noel 

The CDC used to define a “case” as a patient whose characteristic signs, symptoms, and physical examination matched a disease. Labs were only done if clinically needed. Since the “pandemic,” however, the move to boost case numbers is everywhere.

Instantly, a “positive” RT-PCR test in an asymptomatic person after a drive-through tonsillectomy became a “case.” The CARES Act gives thousands extra to hospitals for every “positive,” with a big bonus if the patient’s shadow is seen in an ICU. It’s a classic “one hand washes the other scenario” between outside labs and hospitals. “If you give me more positive results, I get more money, so I’ll send more tests to you.”

My hospital’s Medical Staff President flatly denied any CARES Act benefits at our 2020 Medical Staff Extravaganza, but the incentives can’t be denied. My hospital still sends “coders” out to demand that staff order COVID tests to get more payments. Put bluntly, there’s no way to know what any test means medically if the patient isn’t sick. But “positives” definitely mean money!

MIQE standards list eighty-five parameters that must be met in RT-PCR testing. Does every lab meet them all every time? Around the world, celebrities who test “positive” one day and “negative” the next strongly suggest that a lot of mistakes are being made. This is unsurprising since as early as 2017, the technique was well known for “lack of reproducibility.”

The inventor of the test stated that RT-PCR was never intended to be a diagnostic test and using it as one was scientifically illegitimate. “[It’s] like trying to say whether somebody has bad breath by looking at his fingerprint.”

Proper testing requires checking three genetic elements, widely separated in the genome. For CDC counts and CARES Act payments, only two segments get tested, automatically increasing the number of positive tests – by a lot. The lab starts the RT-PCR by doubling genetic material multiple times to make it easier to identify. In research, if it’s not positive by thirty-five “amplification cycles,”, it’s not positive. FDA guidance indicates that anything found up to 40 cycles is considered “positive.” At forty cycles a glass of water may test positive. Stopping at thirty-five would show that COVID-19 wasn’t any worse than flu, if it was that bad................To Read More.....