I really like this logo. Maybe use it for your upcoming book? Wishing you continued success and financial growth David. Much earned. I think IF people can afford, they should pay for your stack and regard it as an enjoyable "insurance policy " payment. We need honest voices in journalism reporting the truth wherever it may be found. These journalists should be paid for this work IMO.
Iām glad that people are getting better at noticing the problems with CoVid testing. Hopefully it will begin the process of questioning more of the claims of people.
Some of the comments from the editors who turned down Rav Arora's pitches are unreal-- "Kyrie Irving refused to help the public get out of the pandemic and now heās suffering the consequences. Itās on him."
'Get out of the pandemic'. What does that mean exactly? That there was a law of physics that prevented normal life until everyone was vaccinated? Or that the elected officials and bureaucrats who put us in this position refused to lift their odious (and, in the end, useless) restrictions until their demands were met? Door #2 is what I'm inclined to believe.
The logo is okay, except that I think that AI-generated creative work should be avoided, rather than encouraged. Otherwise, who needs artists, writers, or journalists for that matter?
Hi David, your research is revealing just the tip of the iceberg. Every level of stat surrounding the pandemic data chain was massively exaggerated, starting with the first in history "case definition" of COVID that allowed simply a positive test result to be considered a "case." Previously respiratory ailments had always required a positive test and clinical symptoms. We wrote up many of these issues of exaggeration in the below essay (we being myself, a public policy lawyer, an ER doc, and a PhD with training in epidemiology. Please contact me at tam hunt at gmail if you'd like to discuss. https://tamhunt.medium.com/how-covid-19-stats-are-grossly-exaggerated-a-brief-summary-of-the-arguments-53a5b4237c4c
You never responded to my comments about the article. Here's a little more detail:
"Think about it this way: even if every single student in a school without symptoms was infected, 96 percent of them still werenāt capable of transmitting to others." - This suggests that 96% were never infectious. But the study only tested people once at a single point in time. Viral loads shift by orders of magnitude in a matter of hours. Someone who is non-infectious one day will be infectious the next. Furthermore, the study was a convenience sample, not a random sample so you can't apply prevalence estimates to a totally different population. Finally, studies have shown [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh0635] that the number of likely infectious samples in a cohort (based on CT values) is dependent on the phase of an epidemic wave. So the proportion varies wildly, as you point out with the omicron wave.
"This raises serious questions for those in charge of the CDC, NIH, and NIAID for why resources were not allocated toward making this test broadly available." As you will recall, there was a huge crisis over scaling of PCR tests. This was a monumental task for the lab community. The test is very complex so challenging to use at an unprecedented scale. Furthermore, this experimental add on correlates strongly with CT values, which were already available for routine PCR tests. Many people were advocating routine reporting of CT values as a measure of infectiousness. You might have mentioned this important debate.
Your article also ignores everything we know about rapid antigen testing. Why would the public health agencies use this experimental test, which like all PCR has difficulty scaling and takes hours at a minimum to result, instead of rapid tests? From the study: "The assay lacks viral culture data and is hampered by longer turnaround time and complexity. " We know now that rapid tests correlate very well to culture positivity, so they are going to be as good of a correlate of infectiousness as this experimental test.
The UK did institute routine rapid test screening in schools and other places in lieu of many restrictions. There are millions of tests worth of data you can review that gives you a true population sample of degree of infectiousness at different points in time. It's odd to suggest the US do something that was done in a major country and not comment on all of the public data about it.
That you and Silent Lunch here on Substack are gaining exposure is exactly what we want to see! Thank you thank you! Upgraded to paid. Onward and forward, young man!
i listened to rav arora's first interview with dr. battacharya. the sound quality and technical aspects were so poor that i found it difficult to follow. i was surprised when they teamed up but delighted to discover that they seem to have fixed those issues and can now treat us to wonderful, important conversations. battacharya has a lot to say about his treatment during the pandemic.
I really like this logo. Maybe use it for your upcoming book? Wishing you continued success and financial growth David. Much earned. I think IF people can afford, they should pay for your stack and regard it as an enjoyable "insurance policy " payment. We need honest voices in journalism reporting the truth wherever it may be found. These journalists should be paid for this work IMO.
Subscribed! Keep up the good work.
Iām glad that people are getting better at noticing the problems with CoVid testing. Hopefully it will begin the process of questioning more of the claims of people.
Some of the comments from the editors who turned down Rav Arora's pitches are unreal-- "Kyrie Irving refused to help the public get out of the pandemic and now heās suffering the consequences. Itās on him."
'Get out of the pandemic'. What does that mean exactly? That there was a law of physics that prevented normal life until everyone was vaccinated? Or that the elected officials and bureaucrats who put us in this position refused to lift their odious (and, in the end, useless) restrictions until their demands were met? Door #2 is what I'm inclined to believe.
BTW - I like the logo !
The logo looks all right, but the man's posture is a bit too close to "hunched over in despair."
Looking forward to your upcoming pieces.
āDonāt measure what you canāt improveā maxim of engineering applies equally to test hysteria, but I might be quite wrong
So until then, earlier comment stands
https://davidzweig.substack.com/p/the-most-important-test-youve-never/comment/15752144?r=7v442&utm_medium=ios
The logo is okay, except that I think that AI-generated creative work should be avoided, rather than encouraged. Otherwise, who needs artists, writers, or journalists for that matter?
Hi David, your research is revealing just the tip of the iceberg. Every level of stat surrounding the pandemic data chain was massively exaggerated, starting with the first in history "case definition" of COVID that allowed simply a positive test result to be considered a "case." Previously respiratory ailments had always required a positive test and clinical symptoms. We wrote up many of these issues of exaggeration in the below essay (we being myself, a public policy lawyer, an ER doc, and a PhD with training in epidemiology. Please contact me at tam hunt at gmail if you'd like to discuss. https://tamhunt.medium.com/how-covid-19-stats-are-grossly-exaggerated-a-brief-summary-of-the-arguments-53a5b4237c4c
I forgot who said it, but it goes sth like this "In a democracy the journalists have a holy job."
Keep going!
You never responded to my comments about the article. Here's a little more detail:
"Think about it this way: even if every single student in a school without symptoms was infected, 96 percent of them still werenāt capable of transmitting to others." - This suggests that 96% were never infectious. But the study only tested people once at a single point in time. Viral loads shift by orders of magnitude in a matter of hours. Someone who is non-infectious one day will be infectious the next. Furthermore, the study was a convenience sample, not a random sample so you can't apply prevalence estimates to a totally different population. Finally, studies have shown [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh0635] that the number of likely infectious samples in a cohort (based on CT values) is dependent on the phase of an epidemic wave. So the proportion varies wildly, as you point out with the omicron wave.
"This raises serious questions for those in charge of the CDC, NIH, and NIAID for why resources were not allocated toward making this test broadly available." As you will recall, there was a huge crisis over scaling of PCR tests. This was a monumental task for the lab community. The test is very complex so challenging to use at an unprecedented scale. Furthermore, this experimental add on correlates strongly with CT values, which were already available for routine PCR tests. Many people were advocating routine reporting of CT values as a measure of infectiousness. You might have mentioned this important debate.
Your article also ignores everything we know about rapid antigen testing. Why would the public health agencies use this experimental test, which like all PCR has difficulty scaling and takes hours at a minimum to result, instead of rapid tests? From the study: "The assay lacks viral culture data and is hampered by longer turnaround time and complexity. " We know now that rapid tests correlate very well to culture positivity, so they are going to be as good of a correlate of infectiousness as this experimental test.
The UK did institute routine rapid test screening in schools and other places in lieu of many restrictions. There are millions of tests worth of data you can review that gives you a true population sample of degree of infectiousness at different points in time. It's odd to suggest the US do something that was done in a major country and not comment on all of the public data about it.
The issue with asymptomatic PCR testing in hospitals is just very different from general population testing to control infection. This a unique population with unique tradeoffs. I wrote about the problems with asymptomatic PCR testing in hospitals here: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/05/can-covid-19-spread-through-organ-transplants/618852/
Iām happy for you - and happy for all of us. Thereās hope!
Given the media blackout on skepticism, I was surprised the NYT published this story:
"Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldnāt Be."
https://web.archive.org/web/20200829094039/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
That you and Silent Lunch here on Substack are gaining exposure is exactly what we want to see! Thank you thank you! Upgraded to paid. Onward and forward, young man!
i listened to rav arora's first interview with dr. battacharya. the sound quality and technical aspects were so poor that i found it difficult to follow. i was surprised when they teamed up but delighted to discover that they seem to have fixed those issues and can now treat us to wonderful, important conversations. battacharya has a lot to say about his treatment during the pandemic.