On Friday (Sept 18), #Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer told us that Case counts in Canada indicate “accelerated epidemic growth”. Is this true or is it ye olde #Coronaphobia? Let’s take a deep #data dive

#COVID19 #Coronavirus #pandemic #science #fear https://twitter.com/CPHO_Canada/status/1307077178492936192

Let’s the look at the current data as of Thursday this week posted on Public Health #Ontario’s website

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#Testing continues to rise, and an infinitesimally small proportion of all those tests completed are #positive. How infinitesimal? 1.2%

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Number of tests performed today= 35,436

Percent of positives= 1.2%

1,235 MORE #tests performed than yesterday

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And what effect is this surge in testing and 1.2% positivity having on #deaths? Almost none.

“Increased epidemic growth”

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Also pretty much no effect in #ICU COVID-19 capacity

“Increased epidemic growth”

H/t to @Milhouse_Van_Ho for this analysis

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So what is up with all the positive tests then?

Might we be getting false positives?

How many of these “cases” are real COVID-19 infections?

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To answer the question of false positives, we must re-visit #PCR testing and cycle thresholds (Ct)

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A study published by scientists from Public Health Canada/National Microbiology Laboratory found that when a #PCR was run at 24 cycles or below, the #positive #test meant the person is actually infectious with #virus.

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So now the question is: how many cycles are being run in the #PCR #tests currently being used to test people for COVID-19?

You can find the protocol for the PCR tests on Public Health #Ontario’s website

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And here is the full protocol. Public Health #Ontario is using 45 cycles for their PCR tests. That’s almost TWICE the number of #PCR cycles recommended to find real COVID-19 infections in people. Let that sink in...

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What does this mean in layman’s terms? The government/labs are using a PCR protocol that is almost almost GUARANTEED to find a positive result when testing people for COVID-19 infections via PCR testing

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The #UK #government estimates that the false positive rate of these #PCR tests is between 0.8% - 4%.

Let’s the lowest end of the this range (0.8%) and see what that means

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Last Friday, #Ontario conducted a total of 35,826 #tests, and 401 were positive.

If 0.8% of all tests are #falsepositives, that equals 287.

So out of 401 #positive tests, 287 were false positives if you take the LOWEST estimate of false positives (0.8%)

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More than half of the +ive tests found 4m PCR testing were false positives, when we used the LOWEST estimate (0.8%).

THIS is y we’re seeing SO many cases, but almost no impact on hospitalizations & deaths. Because majority of these people being tested are actually not infectious