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The number of anti-science misinformation red flags in this are remarkable. Yes, there is strong evidence that vaccine-derived immunity is quite a bit more pro

The number of anti-science misinformation red flags in this are remarkable. Yes, there is strong evidence that vaccine-derived immunity is quite a bit more protective (as evidenced by antibody titers) than disease-acquired immunity. The PCR cycle number misinformation is the current tinfoil being used to try to claim that there is no "real" epidemic, just false positive testing for some nefarious purpose. It's nonsense. The case number (ie, positive tests) strongly correlate to hospital admissions, which are strongly correlated with deaths, which are not f*cking false positives. So just stop this nonsense please.

beagle3 6y ago
I have verified that indeed case counts by PCR correlate with hospitalizations and death. It’s a good indicator. I am, however, puzzled by the refusal of testing facilities to actually disclose what cycle count they are using. It could be too high, it could be too low, it’s likely “just right”. But “trust me I am doing it right” is the wrong answer to someone who hasn’t yet made up their mind.
- jhayward 6y ago
  Because science is complex, there is no universal answer to "what is the right CT" for PCT. Each assay/test configuration and mechanism has its own characteristics and constraints. The right number can vary, even from lab to lab using "the same test", due to variance in sample technique, storage, source of materials, etc. And besides, the average CT for positive tests has been below 30 for the vast majority of tests, with something like a 0.005% false positive rate [1]. The people who are barking about CT are misinformation specialists, not infectious disease specialists [1] https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/1345381121706651649 https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/134538112170665164... So to the anti-vaxers who want to score points over CT values, just ask them what CT threshold they use in their own lab, and how they justify it vs 1 higher, or 2 lower, or double, or half. They don't have answers because it is complex and they don't know what the specific lab(s) are doing.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    With all due respect, this is how religion is done, not how science is done. I am not an antivaxer, I am up to date on all my vaccines. I was reading the Pfizer report, and I noticed that, w.r.t to severe disease, the placebo arm had 4 people, and the vaccine arm had 1 (please don’t trust me and check for yourself). That is 75% RRR with (any reasonable) confidence interval (0,100). I have mentioned it and got attacked for being an anti vaxxer, mostly by people who had not read the Pfizer report, would not understand it if they did, but were adamant that “it is 95%. Pfizer said so, and the FDA approved”. Statistics people I reached out too, however confirmed my reading of the results. Now, you may very well be right, but your response is indistinguishable from that (provably wrong) attack I received, except perhaps to PCR experts. Similarly, almost everyone I’ve met, including many biologists and doctors, claim that two weeks after the 1st vaccine does protection is 50% and only gets to 95% after the 2nd one, which is very wrong (but only people who looked at Pfizer’s data are aware of that). Do you actually know what you said for sure, or just repeating what you’ve been told? Furthermore, I am at this second stuck in Israel, a country with 35% vaccinated population, 6 weeks of lockdown (of which 3 have been relatively tight). I had believed the infectious disease experts in the beginning, but every single falsifiable prediction they made since March 2020 has been falsified. And in the times I looked at their data and methodology, it was abysmal 3rd grade statistics and politically motivated. So, my trust for “leave it to the experts” right now is at absolute zero. (And... the only data I was able to find here in Israel is unofficial, but supposedly they use 35 cycles - which every PCR using biologist I’ve talked to told me was bonkers, although some said “well, perhaps they have a good reason to”. This is not science. It’s religion)
    - jhayward 6y ago
      https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219048v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219048v... Page 25. Actual infectious disease scientists. There are two conclusions you can draw from these graphs: 1) The vast majority of 'positive' PCR tests do not need > 30 cycles to demonstrate presence of virus. 2) Actual, employed, doing-the-work scientists do indeed use > 30 cycles, and publish the work, to demonstrate facts with actual scientific merit. Of course, your buddies who tell you that "it's bonkers" are a reliable source, right?
call_me_dana 6y ago
Unfortunately, putting your fingers in your ears and saying “it’s just misinformation, it’s just misinformation” over and over doesn’t make this RT cycle issue go away. This is coming from Fauci himself: “…If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent are miniscule…you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…it’s just dead nucleoids, period.” Anything 35 and over gives results that can’t be trusted. False negatives but way more important are the false positives. The FDA has recommended the PCR cycle threshold up to 40. I would be happy to provide citations if you’re too lazy to do it yourself. Sorry, inconvenient truths like this will continue. No, claiming something is nonsense and attempting to link it to actual tinfoil conspiracy theories will not work. You and your ilk will have to come up with some new talking points to fool people who can’t do basic research or read a medical study. Have yourself a wonderful day.
- jhayward 6y ago
  Tell us, learned friend, what is the average CT recorded on positive tests today? And what is the false positive rate of those tests? I'll give you a hint - it's less than 30, and about 0.005%. So why, pray tell, is CT such an important attack point against testing? Bringing up CT is just a smokescreen to try to discredit the idea that there is a pandemic. So please stop.
  - call_me_dana 6y ago
    I’ll respectfully ask for more than a hint instead of blindly taking your word as fact. What I need is a source that backs up the statistics you just dropped. Unless of course you pulled both directly out of your rear end. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
    - jhayward 6y ago
      https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/1345381121706651649 https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/134538112170665164...

beagle3 6y ago

I have verified that indeed case counts by PCR correlate with hospitalizations and death. It’s a good indicator. I am, however, puzzled by the refusal of testing facilities to actually disclose what cycle count they are using. It could be too high, it could be too low, it’s likely “just right”. But “trust me I am doing it right” is the wrong answer to someone who hasn’t yet made up their mind.

jhayward 6y ago
Because science is complex, there is no universal answer to "what is the right CT" for PCT. Each assay/test configuration and mechanism has its own characteristics and constraints. The right number can vary, even from lab to lab using "the same test", due to variance in sample technique, storage, source of materials, etc. And besides, the average CT for positive tests has been below 30 for the vast majority of tests, with something like a 0.005% false positive rate [1]. The people who are barking about CT are misinformation specialists, not infectious disease specialists [1] https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/1345381121706651649 https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/134538112170665164... So to the anti-vaxers who want to score points over CT values, just ask them what CT threshold they use in their own lab, and how they justify it vs 1 higher, or 2 lower, or double, or half. They don't have answers because it is complex and they don't know what the specific lab(s) are doing.
- beagle3 6y ago
  With all due respect, this is how religion is done, not how science is done. I am not an antivaxer, I am up to date on all my vaccines. I was reading the Pfizer report, and I noticed that, w.r.t to severe disease, the placebo arm had 4 people, and the vaccine arm had 1 (please don’t trust me and check for yourself). That is 75% RRR with (any reasonable) confidence interval (0,100). I have mentioned it and got attacked for being an anti vaxxer, mostly by people who had not read the Pfizer report, would not understand it if they did, but were adamant that “it is 95%. Pfizer said so, and the FDA approved”. Statistics people I reached out too, however confirmed my reading of the results. Now, you may very well be right, but your response is indistinguishable from that (provably wrong) attack I received, except perhaps to PCR experts. Similarly, almost everyone I’ve met, including many biologists and doctors, claim that two weeks after the 1st vaccine does protection is 50% and only gets to 95% after the 2nd one, which is very wrong (but only people who looked at Pfizer’s data are aware of that). Do you actually know what you said for sure, or just repeating what you’ve been told? Furthermore, I am at this second stuck in Israel, a country with 35% vaccinated population, 6 weeks of lockdown (of which 3 have been relatively tight). I had believed the infectious disease experts in the beginning, but every single falsifiable prediction they made since March 2020 has been falsified. And in the times I looked at their data and methodology, it was abysmal 3rd grade statistics and politically motivated. So, my trust for “leave it to the experts” right now is at absolute zero. (And... the only data I was able to find here in Israel is unofficial, but supposedly they use 35 cycles - which every PCR using biologist I’ve talked to told me was bonkers, although some said “well, perhaps they have a good reason to”. This is not science. It’s religion)
  - jhayward 6y ago
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219048v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219048v... Page 25. Actual infectious disease scientists. There are two conclusions you can draw from these graphs: 1) The vast majority of 'positive' PCR tests do not need > 30 cycles to demonstrate presence of virus. 2) Actual, employed, doing-the-work scientists do indeed use > 30 cycles, and publish the work, to demonstrate facts with actual scientific merit. Of course, your buddies who tell you that "it's bonkers" are a reliable source, right?

call_me_dana 6y ago

Unfortunately, putting your fingers in your ears and saying “it’s just misinformation, it’s just misinformation” over and over doesn’t make this RT cycle issue go away. This is coming from Fauci himself: “…If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent are miniscule…you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…it’s just dead nucleoids, period.” Anything 35 and over gives results that can’t be trusted. False negatives but way more important are the false positives. The FDA has recommended the PCR cycle threshold up to 40. I would be happy to provide citations if you’re too lazy to do it yourself. Sorry, inconvenient truths like this will continue. No, claiming something is nonsense and attempting to link it to actual tinfoil conspiracy theories will not work. You and your ilk will have to come up with some new talking points to fool people who can’t do basic research or read a medical study. Have yourself a wonderful day.

jhayward 6y ago
Tell us, learned friend, what is the average CT recorded on positive tests today? And what is the false positive rate of those tests? I'll give you a hint - it's less than 30, and about 0.005%. So why, pray tell, is CT such an important attack point against testing? Bringing up CT is just a smokescreen to try to discredit the idea that there is a pandemic. So please stop.
- call_me_dana 6y ago
  I’ll respectfully ask for more than a hint instead of blindly taking your word as fact. What I need is a source that backs up the statistics you just dropped. Unless of course you pulled both directly out of your rear end. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
  - jhayward 6y ago
    https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/1345381121706651649 https://twitter.com/LaymansScience/status/134538112170665164...