Sunday, August 8, 2021

Everyone who takes a Covid PCR test is entitled to see their Ct score. States should forbid reporting of “cases” without corresponding Ct scores. Rhode Island Ct numbers acquired via FOIA-Todd Kenyon, 1/8/21

Every individual receiving a test should receive their associated Ct score. Furthermore, all states should require Ct scores to be reported along with “cases.””…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1/8/21, “COVID-19 PCR Testing: Cycle threshold values are the missing piece of the pandemic puzzle–until now,” by Todd Kenyon, PhD, CFA, RationalGround.com
“Most folks by now have heard that the great majority of COVID-19 tests are PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests. And you may have heard that there are potential problems with interpreting the results of these tests. New data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the State of RI [Rhode Island] confirms that there is much more information contained in PCR testing than a simple “positive/negative for COVID” result. Yet until now this information has been withheld.

First, a quick review of the PCR test. Originally developed to detect the presence of DNA and RNA in biological samples, even its Nobel Prize-winning inventor Kary Mullis declared that PCR was never intended to diagnose a disease. It simply detects the presence of specific genetic material, which may or may not indicate infection.

With every other disease, clinical symptoms are required for diagnosis. The vaccine trials require specific symptoms along with a positive test to flag someone as a COVID-19 “case”. Yet we are running millions of PCR tests worldwide on asymptomatic folks and quarantining them (this includes essential health care workers) if they test “positive” – no symptoms required.

As Dr. Mullis put it, the PCR technique can find almost anything in anybody. The PCR test uses amplification cycles to find viral RNA. The sample is repeatedly chemically amplified to increase the RNA copies until they can be detected. Each “cycle” of amplification doubles the number of molecules in a sample. If you run enough cycles, you can effectively find a single molecule of any substance.

But is this clinically significant? Not according to many studies that confirm PCR results by culturing virus from the samples (a technique not practical for wide-spread testing). These studies indicate that if the machine must run more than 25 to 35 cycles to get the sample to the test’s Limit of Detection, there isn’t enough virus in the sample to matter clinically – i.e., no live virus can be cultured.

Yet data we have obtained indicates that most labs run more than 35 cycles, and some run as many as 45! Since each cycle doubles the RNA copies, 40 cycles means ONE TRILLION-fold amplification (2 to the 40th power)!

The number of cycles required for the machine to flag the sample positive, known as the CYCLE THRESHOLD or Ct, is proportional to the original viral load in the sample. Higher viral load = more infection. Fewer cycles required to detect the virus (Lower Ct) = more infection. Once you get to ~30+ cycles, the likelihood that the subject is infectious becomes very small. This Ct number is a crucial part of the PCR test result!

Except that officials don’t seem to think so. If you get a positive PCR test result, good luck getting your Ct value. It is simply not reported. This is akin to taking a cholesterol test and getting a yes/no answer. You are “positive” for high cholesterol, but no information is given on LDL and HDL levels and how far out of normal range they are. That would be ridiculous, yet this is what the world is doing with PCR tests for COVID-19.

On top of the Ct issue is that tests don’t look for the complete RNA strand. Instead, they test for one, two, or three gene sequences. Tests that look for only one sequence are less accurate than those that use two or three, and even if the Ct value is reported, that value is often the average of the values for the different gene sequences instead of the number of cycles needed to detect each sequence. If the number of cycles for detecting different sequences varies widely, that may be an indication that there is a problem with the test, and averaging the values can hide that.

If you get a positive result, you have no idea “how positive” you are. Are you infectious? Likely to become ill?

There’s no way to know without the Ct score–

but go and quarantine anyway! Not only does this result in huge amounts of needless quarantines, it also serves to drive fear and panic. Overly sensitive

tests with no Ct “score” are used to inflate “case” counts.

Also, everyone who shows up at a hospital for any reason is tested, with no Ct information, and if “positive” they are counted as a “COVID hospitalization”. Even fatalities are inflated, as many jurisdictions only require a “positive” test any time in the 1-2 months before death to flag someone as a COVID fatality.

So a binary “positive/negative” PCR test regime with no quantitative information inflates COVID numbers

from cases

to hospitalizations 

to deaths.

Ct data is simply not reported, and many labs claim they don’t even keep them. It took a FOIA request from an intrepid member of RIFreedom.org to finally uncover data from the [Rhode Island] RI State Health Laboratory (RISHL) spanning March-June 2020. If this Rhode Island data is at all representative, there is a lot to be learned from PCR test Ct scores.

First we take a look at each individual positive test, plotted as Ct score versus date of test. The pandemic hit RI hard in early spring, and these data cover that period. Note the color code that indicates which of these “positive” tests may have been truly infectious versus not infectious, or “cold positives”. One can argue where exactly to draw these zones, but the point is clear that a great number of the positive tests represented “cold”/non-infectious individuals.

Next we look at the relative numbers of tests in each category, by Ct value.

Data source: RI HHS via RIFreedom.org
By: TTBikeFit LLC

We can see that nearly half of the positive tests had Ct scores of greater than 32 – meaning they were probably not infectious. Only 42% were likely infectious, and this is during a time when RI was smack in the middle of the spring pandemic, AND when they were mainly testing symptomatic people!

We can analyze the data further by looking at what percentage of Ct scores were above 32 (likely not infectious) by month. As the Spring progresses, we see more tests with higher Ct values = more people with lower viral loads, to the point where 2/3 of tests in June were likely not infectious.

Data source: RI HHS via RIFreedom.org
By: TTBikeFit LLC

Note that RI’s case/hospitalization/death metrics peaked right near the end of April – which corresponds to the large jump in non-infectious Ct scores in May vs April!

Now it gets even more interesting. Let’s look at the daily mean Ct scores by date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As May approaches, the average Ct score of positive tests rises linearly through the “maybe infectious” zone into the “not infectious” zone, again showing clearly that viral loads were decreasing (fewer people were actually sick).

Finally, if we overlay fatalities, we can clearly see the potential predictive effect of Ct score trends relative to pandemic severity. In the graph below, daily fatalities have been offset by 21 days (shifted 21 days earlier than actual date of death) to better align with infection date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here I inverted the Ct scale to represent viral load. As viral load is decreasing (Ct score increasing), we see that fatalities (21 days later) follow. As average Ct scores pass through the yellow into the green zone, fatalities wane.

So the Ct score clearly has predictive power! As it should, since it represents viral load, and higher viral load = more severe illness. It is quite possible that by May-June most of the positive tests were picking up non-viable RNA–dead virus. [What Dr. Fauci would call “dead nucleotides“ at 4:30]

Perhaps one might object that this is just one data set (sadly), so maybe this is a fluke. Well, we did manage to procure a second small data set from a lab on the U.S. west coast, also from the spring. And voila, the Ct score distributions are remarkably similar to those in RI.

Data source: confidential
By: TTBikeFit LLC

It is frankly negligent that officials and “experts” on both sides of pandemic policy are ignoring or cannot access this data. Labs simply don’t provide them, apparently because they are not required to do so. Beyond informing a tested individual regarding the severity of infection (or if there is even an infection at all), the distribution of Ct scores in any given time period provides information that clearly has predictive value in gauging pandemic severity. Yet Ct values are nearly impossible to obtain. To date, only the state of Florida has moved to require reporting of Ct scores, though it’s unclear what the level of public disclosure will be (if any). PCR testing is used as a blunt instrument to whip up reporting of “cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, while crucial insights from Ct scores are ignored.

Worse than draconian lockdown policies are lockdowns based on faulty and incomplete data. How can rational policy be set based on metrics that are corrupted through improper use of PCR testing?

Every individual receiving a test should receive their associated Ct score. Furthermore, all states should require Ct scores to be reported along with “cases.””…

 

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Tuesday, May 25, 2021

British Empire was single biggest buyer of African slaves in late 1700s-early 1800s, bought new African slaves to make them soldiers in West Indies regiments to protect UK Caribbean sugar plantation profits

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"By the end of the 18th century, the British army was the single biggest purchaser of slaves." (at 1:50 on video, Forces News). Added: “In the 1790s the British Government was the largest purchaser of captured Africans. Between 1795-1808 (the very eve of abolition) they paid for 13,400 Africans for West India regiments."

"To protect Britain's lucrative sugar plantations on the islands, 13,400 African slaves were purchased for its West India Regiments between 1795 and 1807. "White soldiers, unused to the region's climate, regularly fell ill, leaving garrisons dangerously undermanned. This led to the decision to buy African slaves to fill those gaps."

10/29/2020, "West India Regiments: The Story Of Slavery In The Army" forces.net, R. Laydon

"Estimates suggest around 13,400 slaves were purchased for the West India Regiments between the years 1795 and 1807.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the British Army was charged with protecting new and lucrative interests in the Caribbean.

The islands of Jamaica, Barbados, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago became known as the British West Indies, known for their sugar plantations....

White soldiers, unused to the region's climate, regularly fell ill, leaving garrisons dangerously undermanned.

This led to the decision to buy African slaves to fill those gaps.

When the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was passed, as many as 50% of Army regiments in the Caribbean included slaves.

The National Army Museum's archive in London holds official documents containing details about the formation of the West India Regiments.

"The records available tell us that the [British] Army purchased about 13,400 slaves for these regiments [between 1795 and 1807] at the cost around £1 million," says Jasdeep Singh, the Research Curator at the National Army Museum.

"Looking at various years, it averages around £70 for the cost of one single slave.

"What the British soldiers didn't realise is that there were mosquitos carrying around Yellow Fever and a variety of tropical diseases.

"From Britain, there were policies sent,...'Here are some supplies, here are some funds, go and purchase new Africans'--so purchase Africans from Africa, as slaves, and then recruit them into the West India Regiments."...

In the years after the slave trade was abolished, the role of those soldiers changed from having to protect colonial assets, to serving overseas....

After first being raised in 1795 to support Britain's presence in the Caribbean, the West India Regiments remained a part of the Army until 1927, and at one point was comprised of 12 different regiments.

The unit was briefly re-formed in 1958, before being permanently disbanded four years later."...images above from forces.net

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Second source:

2016,A Voyage around the Slave Ports of Britain,” Nigel Pocock

[Image: West Indies]

“In the 1790s the British Government was the largest purchaser of captured Africans. Between 1795-1808 (the very eve of abolition) they paid for 13,400 Africans for West India regiments, at the then enormous cost of £925,000. These deals were concealed in an unaudited account called ‘Army Extraordinaries. In 1806 the Government negotiated (with Dawson of Liverpool) for between 2,000--4,000 captured Africans ‘...of the tribes of the [African] Gold Coast...before the act [sic] takes effect.’ In the 12 months before the Abolition Act took effect (ending 1st March, 1808), the British Government purchased 1,000 Africans for the military....

Around 50-60 MPs had holdings in the West Indies, or commercial interests there in the 1820s. The West India lobby was the most powerful single interest group in the [House of] commons. Sir Thomas Johnson, MP, mayor of Liverpool, was partly responsible for one of the first slave ships, the ironically named Blessing, to leave his city.

 
[Image: African slaves on British ship, schoolhistory.org.uk]

In 1788, there were more than 60 West India merchants in the [House of]  Commons, mostly merchants in London.

[The term “West India merchants” is a UK euphemism for "slave traders."]

“Britain was unique among the slaving nations, in that policy was the direct result of Parliament, and especially the Board of Trade.

Parliament authorised the West India Dock Company. The chairman was George Hibbert, a slave merchant, who was also the driving force behind the West India Docks."...

.......................

Third source: Britain bought African slaves to fight in Caribbean wars against France, 1795-1807:

"Slave or Freedman: The Question of the Legal Status of the British West India Soldier, 1795-1807


 

 

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Friday, May 7, 2021

Trump comes full circle, leaving no sign he was ever president. In 2016 we mistakenly thought he wanted to help the country by defeating the vicious GOP Establishment and Karl Rove. In 2020 Trump's campaign accepted $2.5 million from Karl Rove's PAC

Is Donald Trump planning to return the $2,529,979 his 2020 re-election campaign accepted from Karl Rove’s American Crossroads?

On March 4, 2021, Trump said: “If the Republican Party is going to be successful, they’re going to have to stop dealing with the likes of Karl Rove and just let him float away, or retire.”…”Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America,” donaldjtrump.com

Below, screen shot, American Crossroads, “Targeted Candidates, 2020 Cycle," opensecrets.org:

Donald Trump, President, $2,529,969, Lost”

This doesn’t even get into the question of why Trump would accept one penny from Karl Rove since Trump’s 2016 defeat of Karl Rove was the most astounding and meaningful political accomplishment in history. Andrew Breitbart actually worked himself to death trying to do it. As if it were a kleenex, Trump simply discarded the earth shattering results of his 2016 election and put Karl Rove back in power: 11/10/2012, Celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump taunted on Twitter: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”...The single miraculous gift Trump gave the country in 2016--which was not defeating a democrat--was defeating the cancerous GOP Establishment led by Karl Rove. But Trump overturned his own election and reinstated Rove. Today it’s as if Trump never existed. Rove is back in charge preventing the country from having an opposition party to open borders, thus gagging Republican voters. Open borders will never be on the ballot so Republican voters are disenfranchised. Trump obviously wasn’t the answer either. Candidate Trump turned out to be the exact opposite of Pres. Trump. Which explains why Karl Rove is back in charge. Trump’s years of published complaints about Rove are obviously a waste of time.

………………………………………..

Added: 11/10/2012, “At the center of the wreckage stands Karl Rove, the GOP strategist and supposed dark genius….Celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump taunted on Twitter: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”…11/10/2012

Nov. 10, 2012, "Karl Rove and his super PAC vow to press on," Washington Post, Karen Tumulty

………..
……..
……….
As Rove sees it, the campaign proved that American Crossroads and its more secretive issue-advocacy arm, Crossroads GPS — which allows donors to remain anonymous — are here to stay.Rove is pondering new missions for Crossroads to address weaknesses laid bare by the GOP’s back-to-back failures to win the White House and the fact that the party fell short when expected to win back the Senate….Crossroads also is likely to invest more deeply in organizations such as the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has [allegedly] been trying to build a more appealing GOP farm team by, among other things, recruiting Hispanic candidates to run for state-level office….For Crossroads, 2012 was a $300 million learning experience.The failure of Crossroads to live up to expectations is not the only thing that has put Rove back into the news and revived the intrigue that surrounds a man whose seen and unseen hand works in so many places in politics….Rove’s is the most famous name associated with Crossroads, but he said he receives no money from it, not even travel expenses, for his work as a strategist and fundraiser. Its day-to-day operations are run by its president, Steven Law.

Outside their circle, many of the performance reviews have been scathing.

The Sunlight Foundation, which tracks money in politics, calculated that only 6 percent of Crossroads money went to winners; by comparison, the Service Employees International Union, an old war horse of Democratic politics, had a 70 percent victory rate.

Celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump taunted on Twitter: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”…

The idea for Crossroads was born shortly after the 2008 election, when Rove wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal lamenting the fact that the Republicans had no equivalent to the alliance of organized labor and liberal interest groups that had spent $194 million on independent advertising for Democrats during the previous two years.

The next day, Rove recalled, he heard from former Republican chairman Ed Gillespie, who said, “Great idea. What are we going to do about it?”

As they talked to potential donors, Rove said, they realized “there was just a generalized sense that too much of this kind of activity was basically of, by and for the consultants. Donors said, ‘Consultants set these things up, pay a commission to fundraisers, hire themselves to do the work and pay themselves too much.’ ”

“Major donors said, ‘We write checks to these groups, but we’re not enthusiastic, given how they are going about their business,’ ” Rove said.

He and Gillespie also began sounding out the Senate Republican leadership, which recommended Law, a former aide to Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), to run it. The two talked him into the job, though it meant that Law had to leave a far more lucrative post as general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce….

Rove boasts that Crossroads remains an efficient operation….

And his wealthy donors? They all went into this eyes wide open, Rove said, “and their attitude is, beat them next time.””

 

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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Global climate agreement would be counter-productive per peer reviewed study. Southern Hemisphere responds to local changes not to N. Hemisphere changes. Antarctic is isolated from major population centers and not exposed to wind driven black carbon from Asia-University of Queensland study

This study reverses previous findings." 
 
8/4/14, "Climate change not so global," University of Queensland, Australia

"Scientists are calling for a better understanding of regional climates, after research into New Zealand's glaciers has revealed climate change in the Northern Hemisphere does not directly affect the climate in the Southern Hemisphere.

The University of Queensland study showed that future climate changes may impact differently in the two hemispheres, meaning a generalised global approach isn’t the solution to climate issues.

UQ School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management Head Professor Jamie Shulmeister said the study provided evidence for the late survival of significant glaciers in the mountains of New Zealand at the end of the last ice age – a time when other ice areas were retreating.

This study reverses previous findings which suggested that New Zealand's glaciers disappeared at the same time as ice in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.

“We showed that when the Northern Hemisphere started to warm at the end of the last ice age, New Zealand glaciers were unaffected.

“These glaciers began to retreat several thousand years later, when changes in the Southern Ocean led to increased carbon dioxide emissions and warming.

This indicates that future climate change may impact differently in the two hemispheres and that changes in the Southern Ocean are likely to be critical for Australia and New Zealand.”

The study used exposure dating of moraines - mounds of rocks formed by glaciers - to reconstruct the rate of ice retreat in New Zealand’s Ashburton Valley after the last glacial maximum – the time when the ice sheets were at their largest.

The researchers found that the period from the last glacial maximum to the end of the ice age was longer in New Zealand than in the Northern Hemisphere.

They also found that the maximum glacier extent in New Zealand occurred several thousand years before the maximum in the Northern Hemisphere, demonstrating that growth of the northern ice sheets did not cause expansion of New Zealand glaciers.

New Zealand glaciers responded largely to local changes in the Southern Ocean, rather than changes in the Northern Hemisphere as was previously believed,” Professor Shulmeister said.

“This study highlights the need to understand regional climate rather than a global one-size-fits-all.”

The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Griefswald, Germany, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in July."

=============================

Peer reviewed study cited above:

7/28/2014, "The early rise and late demise of New Zealand’s last glacial maximum," PNAS.org, Henrik Rothera,1 David Finkb, James Shulmeisterc, Charles Mifsudb, Michael Evansd, and Jeremy Pughe,2
.
"Significance"...

"This record from a key site in the midlatitude Southern Hemisphere shows that the largest glacial advance did not coincide with the coldest temperatures during this phase. We also show that the regional post-LGM ice retreat was very gradual, contrary to the rapid ice collapse widely inferred. This demonstrates that glacial records from New Zealand are neither synchronous with nor simply lag or lead Northern Hemisphere ice sheet records, which has important implications for the reconstruction of past interhemispheric climate linkages and mechanisms.".

"Abstract"

"Recent debate on records of southern midlatitude glaciation has focused on reconstructing glacier dynamics during the last glacial termination, with different results supporting both in-phase and out-of-phase correlations with Northern Hemisphere glacial signals. A continuing major weakness in this debate is the lack of robust data, particularly from the early and maximum phase of southern midlatitude glaciation (∼30–20 ka), to verify the competing models....These findings preclude the previously inferred rapid climate-driven ice retreat in the Southern Alps after the onset of Termination 1. Our record documents an early last glacial maximum, an overall trend of diminishing ice volume in New Zealand between 28–20 ka, and gradual deglaciation until at least 15 ka." 

"This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1401547111/-/DCSupplemental." 

=====================

NASA confirms above conclusions: Unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic is isolated from major population centers and emissions they produce, in particular it's not exposed to wind driven black carbon from Asia:

4/8/2009, "Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming," nasa.gov/topics

"The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures increase by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, where aerosols play less of a role, the surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F)....
.
Since decreasing amounts of sulfates and increasing amounts of black carbon both encourage warming, temperature increases can be especially rapid. The build-up of aerosols also triggers positive feedback cycles that further accelerate warming as snow and ice cover retreat.

In the Antarctic, in contrast, the impact of sulfates and black carbon is minimized because of the continent’s isolation from major population centers and the emissions they produce....


A new study, led by climate scientist Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, used a coupled ocean-atmosphere model to investigate how sensitive different regional climates are to changes in levels of carbon dioxide, ozone, and aerosols.

The researchers found that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the level of aerosols. Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades. The results were published in the April issue of Nature Geoscience....


Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon -- small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels -- absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere."...


====================

Peer reviewed study cited in above NASA article:

3/22/2009, "Climate response to regional radiative forcing during the twentieth century," Nature Geoscience, Drew Shindell1 and Greg Faluvegi1
| doi:10.1038/ngeo473


======================

Added: The entire Southern Hemisphere is lucky to have avoided being geoengineered by George Bush #1:












George Bush #1 signs Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, making rules stricter than 1970 and 1977 versions. Top left, clapping, Bush EPA chief William Reilly, plucked from his WWF president job by Bush. In particular the 1990 law reduced sulfur dioxide emissions which Bush said caused acid rain.

Unfortunately this exacerbated global warming in Northern latitudes:

Post 1970  global warming "is driven by efforts to reduce air pollution in general and acid deposition in particular."...2011 PNAS study

========================

2009 NASA graph shows warming of Arctic latitudes after US Clean Air Acts of 1970, 1977 and 1990:








Image from Nasa.gov

4/8/2009, "Half of recent arctic warming may not be due to greenhouse gases," Houston Chronicle, Eric Berger

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===================

July 19, 2011 PNAS study finds post 1970  warming "is driven by efforts to reduce air pollution in general and acid deposition in particular, which cause sulfur emissions to decline."

7/19/2011, "Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008," PNAS.org
 
Robert K. Kaufmanna,1 Heikki Kauppib, Michael L. Mann, and James H. Stock

"Conclusion"...

"The post 1970 period of warming, which constitutes a significant portion of the increase in global surface temperature since the mid 20th century, is driven by efforts to reduce air pollution in general and acid deposition in particular, which cause sulfur emissions to decline while the concentration of greenhouse gases continues to rise (7)."...

In a section titled "Results" the PNAS study says cooling sulfur emissions rose somewhat after 2002 due to extreme acceleration of China's coal use, which "partly reverses a period of declining sulfur emissions that had a warming effect of 0.19 W/m2 between 1990 and 2002." (Subhead "Results")

For reference, the purpose of this 2011 PNAS study was to address "the lack of a clear increase in global surface temperature between 1998 and 2008:"


"Abstract"...
.
"Data for global surface temperature indicate little warming between 1998 and 2008."... (1)





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