Here’s one example of a claim that @BretWeinstein & @HeatherEHeying made that doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. In the video below they claim that the CDC is artificially reducing positive tests for vaccinated people by using different PCR thresholds.
They cite this document as evidence. Claiming that it shows they are using a more stringent 28 PCR cycle threshold to identify positive cases for the vaccinated, as opposed to the more common ~35 cycles. More cycles = more chance to detect virus.
cdc.gov/vaccines/covid…
cdc.gov/vaccines/covid…
But this is simply misreading the document. This is not the threshold for a positive result, it’s the threshold for sending a specimen for genetic sequencing to identify the variant. Presumably because above that the sample is hard to extract a reliable sequence from.
This is made clear in the (2 page!) document and on the website that Heather and Bret cite in their episode notes. Yet they managed to misinterpret it and present it to their audience as a smoking gun of the CDC trying to tilt the scales in favor of vaccines.
This isn’t a novel argument by Bret and Heather either it is one that has been made by various anti vaccine advocates and COVID ‘skeptics’. There are already pieces rebutting it. See for example: healthfeedback.org/claimreview/pc…
You can also find this same skepticism from anti vaccine folks over PCR tests and the related claim that they are being used to artificially inflate the number of positive cases (for non-vaccinated) and already debunked by @gorskon back in November. sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-covid-19-ca…
Bret and Heather give the impression of being careful scientists inspecting technical details but in reality they are doing extremely superficial research and recycling standard anti vaxx talking points. And it does have an impact.
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