During a recent meeting with Keep Britain Free, a member who works for the NHS suggested that Covid testing stations should make public the magnification rates they are using. If these rates are high enough, ANYONE will test positive and without transparency they can alter these rates at will to suit a narrative. Once a vaccine is available, you'll suddenly see cases 'plummet'! If more lockdown is required, up they go! Also, if they have to disclose this information, they know they are being monitored and any possible future deception will have been averted.
I sent an FOI request to Public Health Wales asking for the Ct used in the PCR testing, and also asking whether it has changed at any point.
So far no response, not even an acknowledgement.
I was inspired by someone making the same request in Ireland. They were told the Ct was between 40 and 45 (I think) - which would make the test results meaningless.
I too would be interesting in knowing the cycle threshold in use for the Pillar 2 tests.
For what it's worth, page 8 of this document says:
"Results where:
• the Ct value is ≥ 40 and/or
• there is an abnormal assay curve and/or
• the clinical context makes the positive result highly unexpected
should be considered interim or held until reviewed by a laboratory clinician."
To my mind this suggests that (at least in March), the NHS were recommending that a positive result that required 40 cycles or more should be treated as suspect. Whether or not this has any bearing on anything, I have no idea.
I read somewhere that each positive test result also has the Ct documented. I've never seen a PCR test result, so I wouldn't know.
I have also asked ONS to let me know how they determine the percentage of infection in the population. This seems to be fairly consistently about 1/10th of their cases/tests figure:
The implications on specificity and false positive rate are clear:
What is very significant here - and I have mentioned it several times on this forum - is the jump in number of so-called 'cases' around 6th September. This is where the rate of testing tripled.
Throughout July and August, cases/tests were fairly consistently around 0.5%. This indicates a good 'quality' of PCR test with a specificity of up to 99.5%. However, following the ramping up of the testing rate, it seems that these tests may have got a bit sloppy, dropping specificity down to 97.5%.
So why is this? If you search, for example, the Lighthouse Laboratories, you will see that they had great problems getting test results out. There was a lack of experienced staff. I suggest that this may have affected the quality of testing. The specificity (accuracy) drops and false positives increase quite often due to cross-contamination in the laboratory.
I further suggest that such problems may exist more in some laboratories than others. A consequence of this may be that there are geographical variations in case rate. This leads to enforcement of local lock-downs.
Any would-be sleuths out there? This, I think, is a key line of investigation.
A resolution to the whole lock-down issue could hinge on sorting this out.
That's very interesting Mike and thank you very much for posting your evidence. I think you're definitely onto something re local lockdowns.
