Context: I'd like to walk through this, because this plot is sort of a Rosetta Stone of debunking bad takes.
First, Covid skeptics almost uniformly denied that cases were meaningless—up until they could snapshot a plot and blame the vaccines. They'd always claim that there are lots of "false positive" and that unnecessary testing created a "casedemic."
Well, Palestine had much less testing throughout. In fact, Israel was testing SEVEN TIMES as many people as Palestine when goddeketal tweeted. It still tests five times as many people. Goddeketal abandoned his narrative as soon as it allowed him to make an antivaxx theory.
Second, speaking of "false positives," where are they? The positivity rate in Israel is less than 0.2%. Whatever false positives exist must be less than that. This was always a bogus talking point.
Third, seasonality! Virus is gonna virus until the summer sun, right?
Wait, are Israel and Palestine experiencing different seasons? Like even before the vaccine? So it turns out human behavior alters the spread of the virus? Oh.
(Israel and Palestine aren't even the most mismatched counter-example of seasonality.)
Finally, yes, the vaccines work. Other mitigation played a role, but the positivity rates of Israel and the UK are absurdly low. Lower than seen since at least August; lower than anyone except countries that completely suppressed the disease.
This is our future.
It's bright.
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Context: This is either a lie, or a wild misunderstanding, so of course it's gotten almost 10,000 retweets, being amplified by the usual suspects.
At the time the test was developed, the CDC did not have quantified samples of virus (meaning: where the number of RNA copies is nailed down). But that doesn't mean they used the common cold. They tested it against synthesized RNA strands matching the sequenced virus.
"VAIDS" has been circulating for a while, be really perked up when an mRNA AIDS vaccine trial was announced. Antivaxxer theory: vaccines cause AIDS, which will be treated with new vaccines! Ka-ching!
Context: The media did cover this to say that it's wrong. Because it is. There are dozens of authorized PCR tests, and it just happens that an obsolete one was phased out. reuters.com/article/factch…
This meme got started in July, but I've seen a lot recently as the imaginary end date for PCR tests approaches. I predict I'll see more next year when folks claim that PCR is illegal or something. Misinformation is immortal.
Context: This is an incredibly disingenuous plot that conceals an absurdly broad age range (10-59!) to falsely suggest vaccinations increase death. What's going on is >85% of people in their 50s are vaccinated (incl. 94% high risk) and 0% under 12 are. coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccin…
Older people just die more of heart disease and other conditions in general. When one group is mostly under 25 and another group is mostly over 40, the second group will have more deaths.