Wednesday - July 01, 2020

We’re All Immunologists Now

Dammit, I thought I could go a whole day - one damn day - without being driven to make another COVID specific post. I can’t. The BS triggers me and I can’t put it down. Sorry.

Sensationalist journalism comes at us from both sides. While not necessarily “fake news”, the level of bias can bend an interpretation of events into surrealism. I think you know what I mean. I read it every morning in the over-the-horizon-leftwing NY Times Daily Briefing that shows up on my cell phone.

So I’m online (still super speedy and stable, yay!!) and I go over to Gateway Pundit. This is not a news blog that I visit too often, but I’ve found some good articles there lately, so I’m now stopping by routinely.

“BSA". Big. Scary. Articles. Evil Government Is Out To Get You, Because OrangeMan Bad and Freedom Worse!!!

Now Even The COMMON COLD Is Being Counted As A Positive COVID-19 Result, CDC Says reads one headline.

HUGE: MASSIVE CDC FRAUD UNCOVERED – CDC Grossly Overcounting Active China Coronavirus Cases Causing States to Keep Their Economies Closed Indefinitely reads another headline.

I’m losing it. WTFF?? After all the screw ups they’ve done, after all the flack I pray they caught over adding the untested “probables” and the “COVID associated” deaths to the soul destroying TOTAL COVID DEATH COUNT UNDER TRUMP numbers they throw at us, now they’re counting the common cold as COVID, and they’re counting recently discovered recovered cases as new and active cases, just to enable tyrannical governors to keep you frightened and under their thumbs even longer? This can’t be. OK, it can be, but I won’t accept it. I’m fed up and pissed off, tired of being pissed on.

But let’s hold on a minute. Let’s not just accept anything I read as clear fact. Let’s look into things a little bit. Education and illumination. And that means a ton of links, a bunch of reading, and another endless blog post by me that no one will read because TLDR.



There are several kinds of COVID tests out there.

There’s the PCR test, also known as the nasal swab (nasopharyngeal), also known as the viral test, also known as the antigen test, also known as the diagnostic test. This same test can also be done with a throat swab, which makes that one the oropharyngeal test. Different swab location, same test. It’s looking for the presence of the actual virus, also generically called a pathogen.

Then there’s the antibody test, also known as the blood test, also known as the serology test. This one is looking for antibodies; evidence that your body is fighting the virus.

Then there’s the saliva test, developed by Rutgers and not yet widely disseminated. It works pretty much the same way as the PCR swab test.

Lastly, there’s the test you’ve probably never heard of unless you or someone close to you has been sick enough with this to be admitted to the hospital. They run a test called the C-RP, which stands for C-reactive Protein, which they can use to determine just how sick you are. They already know you’ve got it before you get there; this test helps them figure out how bad it is.

It’s confusing that these tests have so many different names.

So generally, there are two kinds of test available to us out in the world. The 3 kinds of PCR test, and the antibody test. And while all of them look for COVID, they look for different aspects of the disease.

The CPR test can ONLY tell you if you have the disease active in your system. Am I sick with COVID, right now? Yes or No.

The antibody test tests for antibodies. Antibodies are what your body creates to fight off antigens. Antigens are foreign baddies in your body. Like SARS COV-2 virus particles. And now it gets a bit complicated. At this point two main COVID antibodies are being looked for with this test. One, the immunoglobulin M, commonly called IgM, are produced by the body early in the infectious stages. They don’t stick around long, whch is probably what those 4 international studies I blogged about last week were referring to. If they aren’t enough to beat the virus, your body starts making immunoglobulin G, commonly called IgG. These are the long term antibodies that can stay in your body forever. [ Should that not be enough to win the day, your body can then activate some aspect of white blood cells, called T cells, that can rip the infected cells right out of your body. In severe cases they can go haywire, totally overreactive, leading to this cytoskine storm thing you’ve heard about. This is bad. In children this is extremely rare, but it’s called the Kawasaki Syndrome, even though it’s proper name is Paediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Everything to do with COVID-19 has multiple names!! ]

So what does the antibody test tell you? It tells you that your body is fighting, or has fought, the SARS COV 2 virus. This is not the same thing as “you have the COVID”. It can mean you’ve had it to one degree or another, or it can mean that you still have it and are fighting it. Given that it often takes a few weeks for your body to produce these antibodies, the test is not at all a useful indicator of recent infection. And this is why every single source that describes the antibody test says it should never be used to definitively say that you have the virus.



Ok, that wasn’t too bad. Now let’s muddy the waters further. No test is perfect. All tests need to strike a balance between sensitivity and specificity. Huh, what?

A good test needs to be sensitive enough to find what it’s looking for, even if there are only small amounts of it in a sample. Tests that are too sensitive will give too high a rate of false positives. Tests that aren’t sensitive enough will give too high a rate of false negatives, and are essentially worthless.

A good test also needs to be fairly specific. SAR COV 2 is a variation of the SARS disease that was around 17 years ago, and it’s also a coronavirus. Sure, you hear on the news people talking about THE coronavirus, because that’s easy to say. But there are quite a number of them. SARS is one, duh, and there are at least two other kinds that cause the common cold. No doubt there are millions of different coronaviruses, but they aren’t germaine to this diatribe of mine. The point is, a good test needs to be specific enough to be able to tell one coronavirus from another, and only trip on this particular SARS COV 2 one. But it can’t be too specific, because the virus is known to mutate. But in order to be broad enough to react to the mutated versions, it might also trigger on non COVID coronaviruses. Like the common cold. Obviously that leniency has to be pretty small; if even 5% of the tests found a common cold virus and called it COVID, then the test wouldn’t be very reliable. So I’m sure the FDA/CDC has some kind of tolerance limit - damnation they had better!! - but some small percentage of other viruses will trigger some of the tests. That’s just the way it is. No test is perfect.

It’s important to note that some tests can mistake IgM antibodies from other coronaviruses, such as common cold strains, for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.

However, to pounce on that long known lack of perfection and make headlines out of it, COMMON COLD now counts as COVID-19, is sensationalist journalism. Yes, there are a few. Damn few, but a few. So what?



Let my lack of medical professional study and training make a guess ... I wonder if the early stage IgM antibody is somewhat generic. Like, the same antibody could work against SARS COV-2, or “regular” SARS, or the common cold. And that the IgG antibody is more specific, aimed just at SARS COV-2. Just a guess on my part. Any doctors, virologists, or immunologists, feel free to correct me in the comments.

I wonder this because the antibody test tests for both of them. And if it comes back showing ONLY the IgM antibody, that could mean you’ve got some kind of coronavirus. Or it could mean you’re in the early stages of the COVID-19 illness. Or it could mean that you had one of these coronaviruses, but not severely, and you got over it recently, fighting it off with only IgM. See why the antibody test is useless as an indicator of current infection?




And now, FINALLY, to the second post, about CDC cheating the new case numbers in a massive fraud against freedom. Well, eventually. We’re getting there, I promise!

It seems obvious to me that anyone testing positive in any way to the antibody test should immediately have the PCR swab test done. If you’re not symptomatic and just curious to know if you have, or have had. this annoying disease, then the PCR test is a good first step, but that comes back negative and you’re still curious you should take the antibody test.

Now that I’ve thought about it a bit, it would probably be the best idea to give everyone being tested BOTH tests at the same time. Maybe even the saliva test too. That’s such an obvious idea that my county has a special graphic to help people interpret the results from getting both tests.

Put in my simple, slightly sarcastic terms, they say:
PCR positive, Antibody positive: you’re sick, and you’ve been sick for a while.
PCR positive, Antibody negative: you just got sick.
PCR negative, Antibody positive: you were sick but you got better.
PCR negative, Antibody negative: why are you wasting our time? You’re a COVID virgin. If you’re sick, it ain’t from COVID. Go away.

CDC BAD, AGAIN
So if the CDC is lumping newly found cases found by the antibody test in a generic category called NEW CASES, causing the totals to spike and the media to freak, then they are doing us a gross disservice. At this point it is pretty inexcusable to NOT have a category for recovered people, or to make secondary PCR testing mandatory for these people, delaying tabulating those cases as NEW until that result is back. Because until they decide that everyone who ever had this is infectious FOREVER so stay in your house quivering in fear until you die!!!, the rest of us don’t have to worry about anyone who had it before but is over it now. They aren’t infectious, so who cares? Herd immunity and all that. Lumping those results into one big mish mash and then using that as a policy sledgehammer is a dirty rotten thing to do, and the CDC themselves admits this is what they are doing. This is pointed out by both The Atlantic and Forbes, two fairly well respected magazines. It is really hard to believe this is not politically motivated. Investigate, fine, fire, execute.

Ok, so maybe the 2nd post at GP isn’t overly sensational.

The CDC is over counting the number of China coronavirus cases in an apparent effort to keep the country shut down throughout the summer.  This fraudulent activity was uncovered by the far-left Atlantic proving even a dead clock is right twice a day.

On May 21, 2020, the Atlantic reported that the CDC was over counting the number of cases of individuals with the China coronavirus:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.

Or maybe it’s just sensational enough.

Hell, the CDC themselves says not to use the antibody test as an indicator:

Except in instances in which viral testing is delayed, antibody tests should not be used to diagnose a current COVID-19 infection.

This is statistical sleight of hand by the bean counters. And it was brought to their attention weeks ago, yet they’ve done nothing to correct it. Like I said, no excuse for not having an Active category and a Recovered category. And yeah, it’s political.
It leads directly to more stupidity by Fauci and more governors pulling the rug out from under us again. And it spreads fear, and hurts the economy. When will heads finally roll at the CDC? It’s long overdue.

https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/faq-testing-covid-19#faq-1
https://gulfnews.com/world/rapid-covid-19-tests-what-negative-or-positive-results-mean-1.1593518787640
https://www.webmd.com/lung/antibody-testing-covid-19#1
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/serology-overview.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Testing-Guidance.pdf
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/coronavirus-antibody-nasal-swab-saliva-testing-what-to-know-about-covid-19-tests/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paediatric_multisystem_inflammatory_syndrome
https://www.webmd.com/lung/copd/covid-copd-overview

Posted by Drew458     on 07/01/2020 at 09:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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