Is Testing a Good Strategy

                                                               The View from the Middle 

If your goal is to keep America in panic mode, then a massive testing effort is a great idea.  If you increase testing by 1,000%, do you know what you are going to get?  You are going to get more positive test results, and according to the CDC about 20% of those results are going to be false positives.  This increase in cases will be captured by the news media and dominate front pages and lead stories on TV because fear sells papers, ratings and clicks around the world.  

What you won’t hear much about on the news is that there has only been one death in the US due to the Omicron variant, and that person died “with” Covid, not “from” Covid.  You will also not hear that hospitalizations are not increasing nearly as much as infections and the main reason for increased hospitalizations is that people are finally getting some of those elective surgeries that they have been postponing for over a year.  This variant is less lethal than the original virus or the Delta variant and, if it follows the same steep increase and almost immediate steep decline seen in other countries, it may be ushering in the end of this pandemic.

It also makes me laugh to watch the coverage of incredibly long lines of people waiting to get a test standing outdoors in the freezing cold and sometimes in the pouring rain, reading books or their phones.  Obviously, these people aren’t experiencing any symptoms, or they would (and should) be at home in bed.  Given these “lack of symptoms” testers, we are getting many asymptomatic infected or false positives.  Now, is it important to find these asymptomatic carriers?  Yes and no.  First, these people are not showing symptoms, so they aren’t out there sneezing and coughing on people.  Can they spread this much milder version of Covid to others.  It is possible, but not likely.  In fact, I can find no data on what percent of transmissions are caused by the asymptomatic.

And how often should we test when a person can be exposed to Covid within minutes of testing negative?  Should we test multiple times a day?  Three times?  Four times?  To test three times a day we would need a BILLION tests per day just here in the US, yet we have only ordered half a billion to be delivered in mid-January.  Can you understand how ludicrous a massive testing effort like this will be?  Finally, if we get the same quick peak and decline experienced by other countries, the tests that Biden is planning to deliver in mid-January will most likely be too late anyway.  

Imagine if we had mandatory tests for the common cold, which is also a coronavirus, every year and then mandated five-day quarantines for everyone who tested positive and everyone who was exposed to them.  And the same for next year’s seasonal flu.  Our economy would never recover.  Our children would be taught remotely every day of every year and they would suffer academically, emotionally and socially for the rest of their lives.  At some point the regression students experience would become irreversible.

When are we going to accept the fact that this virus is in control and we must learn to live with it?  If you look at the pattern of infections, hospitalizations and deaths in the US the virus has exploded during times of economic shutdowns and mask mandates just shrugging off these feeble attempts to kill it.  And Joe Biden’s message of doom and gloom has done nothing to kill the virus or motivate our citizens.

If we want to defeat this virus we must stop the counting, which is a big lie in and of itself.  The infection numbers are full of false positives and double counts.  The deaths are exaggerated by at least 25%, and that is according to Dr. Deborah Birx from the original Covid-19 task force.  The death toll continues to include people who die “with” Covid, but not “from” Covid.  If we had used the same methodology for the great Influenza of 1918, the US would have reported the equivalent of eight million deaths back then. 

There are a few of things, however, that we can do, as citizens, to mitigate the spread of this virus.  First, we need to wash our hands multiple times a day.  In my article “Do Masks Even Work” I point out that some of the Randomized Controlled Trials do show a positive correlation between hand washing and mitigation of virus’.  So, wash your hands.  Second, if you are sick, if you are actually experiencing symptoms, stay home.   Third, consult your doctor and ask if the vaccine is appropriate for you.  Despite the fact that there have been many examples of cross-over infections (people who have been vaccinated but still were infected with Covid), the vaccine has shown evidence of protecting people from infection and of becoming seriously ill if they are.

And there are also a few things that the government should be doing to guide the country out of this pandemic.  First, we need a positive message from the top instead of this “winter of severe illness and death”, which is not only depressing the country, but is also inaccurate.  The Omicron variant actually delivers mild cases and virtually no deaths.  Stop the fearmongering.  Stop the lockdowns.  Stop the mandates, and stop ignoring natural immunity.  Follow the science.  Lockdowns don’t work, but natural immunity does.  Second, the federal government should be executing a “warp speed” version of therapeutics to help people get through the disease quickly and safely once they are infected.  Finally, get our kids back in school (without masks) before it is too late.  They are the least vulnerable and the least likely to spread the virus, but the most likely to suffer the long-term consequences of the current emotional deprivation effort currently in place.