Thread by @holmanm

1/14 Can anyone pitch in to help me understand if there is any truth in this ? Viruses are not my strong point. Seen today " I work in the healthcare field, and here is the problem I see.
We are testing people for any strain of a Coronavirus. Not specifically for COVID-19

2/ 14
There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases. This needs to be addressed first and foremost.

3/14 Every action and reaction to COVID-19 is based on totally flawed data and we simply can not make accurate assessments.
This is why you're hearing that most people with COVID-19 are showing nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms. That's because most Coronavirus strains

4/14 are nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms.
The few actual novel Coronavirus cases do have worse respiratory responses, but still have a very promising recovery rate, especially for those without underlying health issues.

5/14 The ‘gold standard’ in testing for COVID-19 is laboratory isolated/purified coronavirus particles free from any contaminants and particles that look like viruses but are not, that have been proven to be the cause of the syndrome known as COVID-19 and obtained by using

6/14 proper viral isolation methods and controls (not PCR that is currently being used or Serology /antibody tests which do not detect virus as such).
PCR basically takes a sample of your cells and amplifies any DNA to look for ‘viral sequences’, i.e. bits of non-human DNA

7/14 that seem to match parts of a known viral genome.
The problem is the test is known not to work.
It uses ‘amplification’ which means taking a very very tiny amount of DNA and growing it exponentially until it can be analyzed.
Obviously any minute contaminations

8/14 in the sample will also be amplified leading to potentially gross errors of discovery.
Additionally, it’s only looking for partial viral sequences, not whole genomes, so identifying a single pathogen is next to impossible even if you ignore the other issues.

9/14 The Mickey Mouse test kits being sent out to hospitals, at best, tell analysts you have some viral DNA in your cells. Which most of us do, most of the time. It may tell you the viral sequence is related to a specific type of virus – say the huge family of coronavirus.

10/14 But that’s all.
The idea these kits can isolate a specific virus like COVID-19 is nonsense.
And that’s not even getting into the other issue – viral load.
If you remember the PCR works by amplifying minute amounts of DNA.

11/14 It is therefore useless at telling you how much virus you may have.
And that’s the only question that really matters when it comes to diagnosing illness. Everyone will have a few virus kicking round in their system at any time, and most will not cause illness

12/14 because their quantities are too small. For a virus to sicken you you need a lot of it, a massive amount of it. But PCR does not test viral load and therefore can’t determine if osteogenesis is present in sufficient quantities to sicken you.

13/14 If you feel sick and get a PCR test any random virus DNA might be identified even if they aren’t at all involved in your sickness which leads to false diagnosis.
And coronavirus are incredibly common.

14/14 A large percentage of the world human population will have covi-DNA in them in small quantities even if they are perfectly well or sick with some other pathogen"