Month: December 2020

We have detailed the controversy surrounding America’s COVID "casedemic" and the misleading results of the PCR test and its amplification procedure in great detail over the past few months.

As a reminder, "cycle thresholds" (Ct) are the level at which widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test can detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the amount of viral load in the sample; the lower the cycles, the more prevalent the virus was in the original sample.

Numerous epidemiological experts have argued that cycle thresholds are an important metric by which patients, the public, and policymakers can make more informed decisions about how infectious and/or sick an individual with a positive COVID-19 test might be. However, as JustTheNews reports, health departments across the country are failing to collect that data.

Here are a few headlines from those experts and scientific studies:

1. Experts compiled three datasets with officials from the states of Massachusetts, New York and Nevada that conclude:“Up to 90% of the people who tested positive did not carry a virus."

2. The Wadworth Center, a New York State laboratory, analyzed the results of its July tests at the request of the NYT: 794 positive tests with a Ct of 40: “With a Ct threshold of 35, approximately half of these PCR tests would no longer be considered positive,” said the NYT. “And about 70% would no longer be considered positive with a Ct of 30! “

3. An appeals court in Portugal has ruled that the PCR process is not a reliable test for Sars-Cov-2, and therefore any enforced quarantine based on those test results is unlawful.

4. A new study from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, found that at 25 cycles of amplification, 70% of PCR test "positives" are not "cases" since the virus cannot be cultured, it’s dead. And by 35: 97% of the positives are non-clinical.

5. PCR is not testing for disease, it’s testing for a specific RNA pattern and this is the key pivot. When you crank it up to 25, 70% of the positive results are not really "positives" in any clinical sense, since it cannot make you or anyone else sick

So, in summary, with regard to our current "casedemic", positive tests as they are counted today do not indicate a “case” of anything. They indicate that viral RNA was found in a nasal swab. It may be enough to make you sick, but according to the New York Times and their experts, probably won’t. And certainly not sufficient replication of the virus to make anyone else sick. But you will be sent home for ten days anyway, even if you never have a sniffle. And this is the number the media breathlessly reports… and is used to fearmonger mask mandates and lockdowns nationwide…

I’m very sorry for your loss. Sadly, a mask mandate has not stopped the spread in many states or countries. I wish masks were the answer. But they truly are just a feel good policy. I wish the data said differently. pic.twitter.com/iMucfz344n

— secret name (@noyb23456) December 6, 2020

All of which is background for an intriguing decision made by Florida’s Department of Health (and signed off on by Florida’s Republican Governor Ron deSantis).

For the first time in the history of the pandemic, a state will require that all labs in the state report the critical “cycle threshold” level of every COVID-19 test they perform.

All positive, negative and indeterminate COVID-19 laboratory results must be reported to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately. This includes all COVID-19 test types – polymerase chain reaction (PCR), other RNA, antigen and antibody results.

Cycle threshold (CT) values and their reference ranges, as applicable, must be reported by laboratories to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately.

Full press release below:

So, why is Florida doing this? There appears to be three options:

1) Pro-Trump – Florida is attempting to pre-empt the Biden Team’s plan to slash the Ct used by labs for COVID "case" which will eliminate the false positives and show "cases" plunge "thanks to Biden’s mask/lockdown/vaccine-confidence" rules.

2) Pro-Biden – Florida is beginning the ‘fake rescue’ plan outlined here (and above)

3) Pro-Science – Florida is the first state to actually pay attention to the real ‘science’ of PCR tests.

We hope, for the sake of Americans’ livelihoods it is Option 3 and the ‘casedemic’ will collapse on itself and allow we, the people to go back to some sense of normality.

Submitted by Adam Andrzejewski,

Since 2004, twenty large federal agencies have admitted to disbursing an astonishing $2.25 trillion in improper payments. Last year, these improper payments totaled $175 billion – that’s about $15 billion per month, $500 million per day, and $1 million a minute.

But what exactly is an improper payment?

Federal law defines the term as “payments made by the government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason."

When people or companies receive incorrect payments, it erodes trust and hinders the government’s ability to finance everything from defense to health care.

Recently, auditors at OpenTheBooks.com published a 24-page oversight report analyzing why, how, and where federal agencies wasted our tax dollars last year.

Here are the top 10 takeaways regarding improper and mistaken payments by the 20 largest federal agencies in 2019:

1. Total Mistakes: $175 billion in estimated improper payments reported by the 20 largest federal agencies, averaging $14.6 billion per month – Total (FY2004-FY2019): $2.25 trillion.

2. Worst Programs – $121 billion (approximately 69 percent) in improper payments occurred within three program areas – Medicaid, Medicare, and Earned Income Tax Credit.

3. Claw Back – only $21.1 billion of the $175 billion improper payments during 2019 was recaptured — that’s only 14 cents on every dollar misspent. Five-year total: $103.6 billion recaptured/ $747.7 billion improperly spent

4. Biggest Offenders:

5. Dead people: $871.9 million in mistaken payments were made to dead people. Medicaid, social security payments, federal retirement annuity payouts (pensions), and even farm subsidies were sent to dead recipients. Root cause: failure to verify death. Four-year total: $2.8 billion

6. Ancient Americans: Six million Social Security numbers are active for people aged 112+; however, only 40 people in the world are known to be older than 112 years of age.

7. Worst Upward Trend: Medicaid and Medicare improper payments soared from $64 billion (2012) to $88.6 billion (2017), and, in 2019, to $103.6 billion. Five-year total: $456 billion

8. Best Turnaround: In 2018, the Education Department overpaid $6 billion to college students receiving PELL grants and student loans. In 2019, improper payments were reduced to $1.1 billion – an 85-percent reduction.

9. Improper Income Redistribution: $17.4 billion in improper payments by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) within the Earned Income Tax Credit program. 25-percent of all payments were improper. Five-year total: $84.35 billion

10. Purchasing Power: What can $175 billion buy? Last year, the federal government wasted the equivalent of a full year of all federal salaries, perks, and pension benefits for every employee of the federal executive agencies. A stunning example of institutionalized incompetence.

Justifications for their improper payments vary by agency.

For example, Veterans Affairs (VA) says they are working on the problem and, yet, have a long way to go:

“During FY19 testing for improper payments, VA found that many root causes of improper payments still have not been remediated. While the VA is actively working corrective actions to remediate these complex problems, VA completes its statically valid testing for Improper Payments Elimination & Recovery Act) one year in arrears…”

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) flat out admits that their improper payments ($17.4 billion FY2019) will continue:

“… the IRS does not have the resources to audit every return claiming return tax credits… Without legislative change to greatly improve effective tools to administer these credits, the improper payment rate will not drastically change.”

Over the years, improper payments is an issue that has attracted reform efforts on both sides of the aisle.

In 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order to stop improper payments in the core programs of the federal government. Core programs provide services such as Medicare and Medicaid.

In 2020, President Donald Trump emphasized the importance of eliminating improper payments in the President’s Budget to Congress FY2021.

But with billions of dollars misspent every year, it’s obvious that both administrations failed to successfully address the issue of improper payments and much more needs to be done.

Authored by James Bovard via the American Institute for Economic Research (emphasis ours)

In August, I reported here on how Montgomery County, Maryland, was seeking to shut down private schools as part of their Covid-19 strategy of abolishing all risk by abolishing all freedom. As more individuals have recently tested positive for Covid, the county government is responding with a new array of iron-fisted decrees. Some of the latest edicts make little or no sense, confirming the county’s nickname of LoCo Moco. 

Gov. Larry Hogan blocked the county government’s effort to criminalize private teaching; Catholic, Jewish, and other schools have operated safely with no significant Covid outbreaks. But county schools remain shut down in large part due to the clout of the teachers union, a bulwark of political support for County Executive Marc Elrich. 

For at least 40 years, MoCo politicians and school officials have invoked “closing the achievement gap” as a sacred goal which justifies the sacrifice of as many taxpayers as necessary. But that goal is not as sacrosanct as assuring that teachers continue to collect full pay while taking zero risks and leaving the most vulnerable students far behind. 

Since the county padlocked public schools earlier this year and shifted to unreliable “distance learning,” there has been a 500%+ increase in the number of black junior high students failing mathematics and a 600%+ increase in Hispanic students failing. The percentage of black elementary school students failing English increased more than 350% and the percentage of Hispanic students failing increased more than 500%. These numbers were revealed during a County Board of Education meeting on December 3; a local activist captured screenshots of the disastrous test results. Some of the data was also reported in yesterday’s Washington Post. Shutting down public schools has done more harm to black students than anything since the end of local school segregation in 1961.

Montgomery’s results are in line with reports elsewhere that show that minority students have suffered far more harm from shutdowns justified to curtail the spread of Covid. This carnage was foreseeable. An analysis by McKinsey & Company consultants last spring estimated that if schools were entirely online until January, on average “white students would lose 6 months of learning, Hispanic students 9 months, black students 10 months and low-income students more than a year during the time school buildings have closed for the pandemic.” 

MoCo leaders recite their devotion to “science and data” except when the data might curb their arbitrary power. C.D.C. chief Robert Redfield testified this week, “The data clearly shows us that you can operate these schools in face-to-face learning in a safe and responsible way.” Maryland State Schools Superintendent Karen Salmon urged local schools to bring back students five weeks ago but Salmon can deliver neither vanloads of votes nor armloads of cash to County Council members. The Washington Post, in an article on the success and safety of European school reopenings, noted, “Teachers unions, which have emerged as a powerful force of opposition to school reopenings in the United States, have generally been more acquiescent in Europe, pushing for safety measures rather than closures.”

Many kids may have unnecessarily lost practically a year of their learning lives but MoCo has compensated with a maniacal devotion to mandating masks. On April 9, Montgomery County’s chief health officer Travis Gayles decreed that any store customer who failed to wear a mask would be fined $500. Gayles discouraged local residents from acquiring and wearing the most reliable protection, such as surgical masks or N95 masks, which the county said “should be reserved for health care workers.” Mandating the wearing of unreliable masks makes about as much sense as requiring everyone to wear a dunce cap with the inscription, “Save me, Big Brother!”

On August 24, the County Council “expanded” the face mask mandate to compel everyone to cover their chins as well as their mouth or nose. (N95 masks were exempt but commoners were not supposed to be using those anyway.) Neither the Council members nor health czar Gayles revealed the secret medical data on how chins could transmit Covid. The edict was poorly publicized and mostly ignored by local residents. 

On November 24, Gayles issued a new mask dictate: “Coverings must be worn outdoors and whenever coming into contact with individuals who are not members of their household, such as being within six feet.” Ordering people to wear masks when they walked alone outside, walked their dog, or went to the mailbox spurred ridicule on local forums. One cynic groused: “Gayles says he follows the science. The science he follows may be from a mad scientist but it’s science.” The following day, the county issued a “clarification” specifying that masks are not required if you are “Alone in your office or vehicle.” Also exempted were kids “Under the age of 18 and are engaged in vigorous sports – as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.” But the pro-exercise health guidance apparently becomes null and void on the 18^th birthday. 

Maryland has a hotline number to report any violators of statewide mask mandates, and MoCo is a rich soil for raising informants. Politicians and bureaucrats have fanned mass fears which have ripened into hatred of anyone who does not comply with the latest edict. I was recently walking along the C & O Canal Towpath, talking to two friends. None of us were masked. 

Coming in the opposite direction was a geezer, walking slumped forward with a long white shirt, big floppy hat, and a six-foot walking stick.  He suddenly stops and points his stick at me and shouts:

“DISTANCING!”
“What?” I replied
“YOU’RE NOT DISTANCING!”

“So what are you supposed to be, an Old Testament prophet?” I said. “Great – so now we got the Prophet Isaiah casting damnation on all Towpath violators.” I should have counted my blessings that he wasn’t like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, buttonholing people and forcing them to listen to a 45-minute poem.

Maybe I should have also felt lucky that Prophet Dude could not summon a police SWAT helicopter. Maryland has vigorously encouraged people to rat out violators and the state has no shortage of self-appointed Junior Stasi members. 

County agents conducted 90 inspections of businesses on the night before Thanksgiving. 

Earl Stoddard, Montgomery County’s head of emergency management, lamented to the Washington Post: “We can’t be everywhere in every store all at once.” Stoddard encouraged residents to file accusations against any business with which they had “concerns.” 

Last week’s Black Friday sales were treated by government officials like a crime scene in progress. A long line of customers waited outside of a humongous Best Buy store – along with police cars from both the county and Rockville. Perhaps the police were equipped with long-distance Tasers to zap anyone not wearing a proper mask? 

Businesses have no safe haven regardless of how much they have spent to protect customers and placate bureaucrats. A Harris Teeter grocery store made extensive changes after the start of the pandemic, including placing large plexiglass screens between every one of its nine self-service checkout stations. A single customer, who perhaps failed to take his Xanax that morning, complained to the Montgomery County government that he felt unsafe when he visited the store. A county inspector swooped in and threatened to shut down the grocery store unless they blocked access to half of their self-service stations. As a result, the store now sometimes has long lines of people waiting to check out – and presumably increasing their exposure to Covid while waiting. The inspector also forced the store to designate one of its two entrances as an “exit only.” One store employee feared that county inspectors could return and compel the store to dictate which direction people walk down each grocery aisle. 

Trader Joe’s in Rockville, perhaps seeking favor with zealous inspectors, has imposed some of the tightest restrictions on shoppers since the pandemic began. There is usually a long line out front; shoppers are also required to form a single long line before checking out. Recently, a Hispanic lady pushed her grocery cart to bluntly cut the line. A number of black customers with their grocery carts were in line behind her, and a shouting match ensued with ethnic taunts flying thick and fast. The store manager raced to the scene to squelch the uproar. But this type of fracas never happened in that store prior to its “pandemic fixes.” This is another example of how unjustified government prohibitions are spurring pointless social conflicts.

Perhaps local residents should be grateful that Gayles or County Executive Elrich have not gone as far as the California mayor who swore that anyone not wearing a mask in public was guilty of “an act of domestic terrorism.” 

Unfortunately, all the bankrupted local businesses, all the shafted young children, and the surge in cases of attempted suicide  and mental illness are irrelevant to how MoCo scores its good deeds. As long as county officials can claim that things would have been worse without its destructive edicts, they can continue pretending to have saved humanity. Perhaps Elrich and Gayles are hoping that if they inflict enough misery on MoCo, the Biden administration will appoint them to prestigious positions to help impose a national Covid lockdown.