Covid PCR and Other Odds and Ends

In der news.

It is amusing to read nitwits who know nothing about PCR and RT-PCR, much less ever having done those procedures (which I have, many times), screeching about “false positives” with respect to covid-19 testing.

True enough, with America sliding into Third World status, and with Asians infesting American STEM and biomedicine, who knows how incompetently the assays are being done, but, in theory, they can be, and should be, specific.

If you want to catch infected people early, who may have a very low viral load, you will need to use a high CT threshold.

We should ask certain questions. Are negative controls included in the assays? Are the primers specific?  Are the reaction conditions, combined with the primers used, sufficient to result in a specific amplification?  Are steps taken to avoid contamination?  How is it known that “false positives” exist and to what are these alleged “false positives” attributed to?

See this.

A “no template” (negative) control (NTC) is used for every run and is needed to confirm that there is no contamination for the assay.

A positive template control (COVID-19_N_Postive, IDT, #10006625) targeting the SARSCoV-2 N-gene (N1 and N2) is used for every run and is needed to confirm that the assay is completed by the intended design.

An internal control primer/probe set, targeting the human RNase P gene, is used for every patient sample to confirm appropriate specimen collection and to monitor the integrity of nucleic acid extraction and RT-PCR reactions.

A human specimen (HSC) extraction control is included in each run to test for failure in lysis and extraction and potential contamination during extraction

So, it does seem that proper controls are being utilized. Now, it is possible that at high CT, traces of virus are being detected in someone who is not (at that time) infectious and who may not get symptoms, but that can be established only after the fact.  Again: If you want to catch infected people early, who may have a very low viral load, you will need to use a high CT threshold.

Maybe the flubro anti-vaxx crowd can stop talking about things that they know little about. But, but, but..."Kary Mullis said X,Y, Z about PCR false positives and he invented the technique." Yes, and you can read more about him and some of his other antics here.  True, that's ad hominem, but "appeal to authority" ("Mullis invented PCR so everything he says is right") is just as bad. It may sound counter-intuitive to people with no scientific background, but just because someone invents the principle of a technique, that doesn't mean they know as much, much less more, about that technique than the large numbers of people who routinely use the technique, refine it, have to interpret the results in the real world, and who basically "live" with it on a regular basis. Who do you think would know more about using telescopes - Lippershey in 1608 or an astronomer of today?  And is that an appeal to authority as well?  Expertise derived from a clear understanding principles involved and real-world experience has to count for something, particularly when it is coupled to real data derived from the use of the proper controls. One has to distinguish accepting something just because an "expert" says so, and accepting something because an "expert" presents a logical explanation coupled to verifiable and reproducible data.

It's a miracle!  What a moron this Ramzpaul is. Let's see. People are staying home.  People are wearing masks. People are keeping away from each other. Thus, there is less influenza. What's so difficult to figure out?  And if covid-19 is more infectious than is influenza, which may be the case, then it is not surprising that under current conditions, flu is not very high while covid continues to spike.  How I despise the Retard Right.

I agree Laura, Britain is the homeland of the British people. Very well. Others can say the same for their own nations. So, when is your organization going to denounce British expats invading Spain, France, Italy, and Bulgaria?  When will you denounce John Morgan living in Hungary, or Munro in Romania, or Farrell in Italy, or Full Moon Ancestry's "Bang East Europe?"

I agree that Poles and other non-British Europeans should not be living in the UK (and of course, non-Europeans are even worse). But I have never - not once - heard or read a "British nationalist" or an "English nationalist" call on their co-ethnic expats to leave the colonies they've established in EU nations and return home. Not one single time has, to my knowledge, anything of the sort been said or written, even after Brexit.  Ethnonationalism for me but not for thee is the cry of the Herrenvolk. 

Johnson's fulminations on past European immigration to America are interesting considering he has promoted the idea of a 10% racially alien population in a "White American ethnostate." Well, hey, those Irish Catholics fleeing the potato famine were a problem; on the other hand, "Rosie and the kids" are A-OK!

And what a hypocrite Johnson is.  He "wishes he had critics of his work, but there really aren't anyone" - he's "unassailably right."  Excuse me, liar, even Silver of all people - someone who's been a harsh and vulgar critic of my work for more than a dozen years - told you should debate me and your excuse for refusing was that I am "insane."  Then you turn around with your soprano-pitched sighing about how there are no counter-arguments against your positions - while such are a regular feature of this blog.

So, I can turn Johnson's refusal to debate around. He won't debate the "insane" Sallis because of my "insanity," then I refuse to debate him because of his unending mendacity. He should just be unalterably opposed, sort of like a disease - why debate a disease?  Just inoculate the target population against the Johnsonian disease.

Cervantes on women:

That is the natural disposition of the sex, said Don Quixote, to disdain those who adore them, and love those by whom they are abhorred....

The good Don was a gamester!  And, of course, accurate.

Shilling for small, weak nations. Boy, that’ll really be able to compete with China, eh?  What an idiot.  Or is it intentional?  I’m sure “Ben Dover” would like to encourage White males (not men) to support policies that would benefit China.

Sallis, always, always right. Pimp, pimp, pimp away!  Do incidents like that explain HBD? Explain "pro-White activists" shilling for small and weak White nations?

Celebrating Anglo-Nordicism.  Again, Sallis – always right.

Self-awareness is good.

Personally, I have something of a reputation in meatspace of being very difficult to get along with. This reputation is not unearned.

Dago, greaseball, meatball.

HBDers celebrate.

Another Counter-Currents attack against MacDonald.  My, my…they are certainly “punching right” these days, eh?  And here is another one. One must really wonder what is going on behind the scenes at The Grand Alliance. The cracks in the facade are getting a bit deeper.