Study Suggests Potential High Rate of False-Positives For Some COVID-19 Testing

March 16, 2020

By
Joe Martino

Black Press Media file photo.

In Brief

• The Facts:Study suggests that COVID-19 testing may be returning a great deal of false-positive results.
• Reflect On:In cases where science and medicine are rushed, it's common for there to be errors. Are we seeing that here? Should we be rushing a vaccine and medication? Are there not alternative treatments available that aren't being recommended by gov't?

[As of March 16th, an update had been applied to this post. See Below.]

In a PubMed study out of China published March 5th, 2020 titled Potential False-Positive Rate

Among the ‘Asymptomatic Infected Individuals’ in Close Contacts of COVID-19 Patients, researchers found that there may be a substantial issue with testing methods that is leading to a high number of false-positive readings. As indicated in the abstract of the study, those who were asymptomatic, which means showing no signs of illness or disease, and who were in close contact with CVOID-19 patients, were likely to be tested positive falsely. As outlined in the study:

“In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives.”

“Results: When the infection rate of the close contacts and the sensitivity and specificity of reported results were taken as the point estimates, the positive predictive value of the active screening was only 19.67%, in contrast, the false-positive rate of positive results was 80.33%. The multivariate-probabilistic sensitivity analysis results supported the base-case findings, with a 75% probability for the false-positive rate of positive results over 47%.”

I initially found this to be inspiring as it may mean that many cases where people are sick may actually just cases of influenza. I am continuing to do research on this.

Although nothing is confirmed yet, and perhaps new testing methods are emerging, it’s possible that the reason for poor accuracy in testing is due to the fact that the virus itself was not properly isolated and purified to create accurate testing. This would be in accordance with Koch’s postulates which suggest that in order to accurately identify a virus and test for it one must follow 4 key steps.

advertisement - learn more

• Purify the pathogen (e.g. virus) from many cases with a particular illness.
• Expose susceptible animals (obviously not humans) to the pathogen.
• Verify that the same illness is produced.
• Some add that you should also re-purify the pathogen, just to be sure that it really is creating the illness.

A major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine discussing the COVID-19 virus does, in fact, admit that it did not follow Koch’s postulates:

“Although our study does not fulfill Koch’s postulates,”

As outlined in an opinion piece on GreenMeedInfo:

“A paper from Singapore by doctors and public health officials provides a revealing look at the inner guts of coronavirus testing. Hidden away in the supplementary material of reference [24], where few people will see it, it exposes some important issues with tests:

Stay Aware

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

 

• The test is not binary (negative/positive) and has an arbitrary cutoff.
• The quantity of RNA does not correlate with illness.
• If negative means uninfected and positive means infected, then people went from infected to uninfected and back again, sometimes several times.
• Results below the cutoff are not shown, are treated as negative, but if PCR continued past the cutoff and was eventually positive, would indicate presence of small quantities of the RNA which is supposedly unique to the coronavirus.

Before you read beyond the following figure, ask yourself why the first 6 graphs, shown deliberately out of numerical order, are separated. What are the visual differences between those 6 and the remainder? Do this right away so my interpretation does not bias your opinion.

An interesting post from Dr. Paul Offit on his Facebook page outlines some interesting statistics I feel people should consider. While I feel Paul is not very well informed on the subject of vaccines, he makes some interesting observations here.

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of March 7, 2020, 36 million to 51 million people have suffered from influenza, 370,000 to 670,000 have been hospitalized, and 22,000 to 55,000 have died from the disease. To put these numbers in perspective, let’s look at countries that have dealt with COVID-19.
China, where COVID-19 originated, has reported roughly 3,000 deaths. The population of China is about 1.4 billion, three times greater than ours (United States). If we suffer an equivalent proportion of deaths, then 1,000 Americans will die from COVID-19, one-twentieth to one-fiftieth of the number who have died from influenza.
Italy has reported roughly 2,000 deaths from COVID-19 and, as a result, has shut down the country; only grocery stores and pharmacies remain open. Italy has a population of 60 million, about one-fifth of the U.S. population. If we suffer an equivalent proportion of deaths, then 10,000 Americans will die of COVID-19, about one-half to one-fifth of the number of deaths from influenza.”

What To Consider

As with anything, it’s important to not fall into the collective fear and panic around the virus. Even if cases can be serious, panic and fear will not help anything or anyone. Since the symptoms so closely resemble the flu, it’s possible that many cases heard around the world are in fact flu cases and not COVID-19. This might suggest that it’s actually more difficult to get than the mainstream media is suggesting. Yes, this is partly unsupported scientifically at the moment, but it seems quite likely in my opinion.

Keep a nutritious diet going. Fruits, vegetables, water and minimizing added sugars, dairy and processed foods will help in keeping you healthy.

While this is being denied everywhere in the West, in China Vitamin C is being used a lot to help combat the virus. You can follow our coverage on how to take it here.

I have made my Conscious Breathing program FREE for everyone as it helps to keep the heart in a state of coherence and also moves your nervous system back into a parasympathetic mode where your immune system will be stronger. You can use my methods here.

We are going to be running a global meditation this Wednesday, March 18th to help create a global state of peace and calm. Collective intention has a great deal of power and we feel inspired to help harness that together.

Finally, a detox from mainstream media can be helpful. It’s not as if there is so much information you must know about Coronavirus where becoming obsessed is justified. It’s good to be informed, but enjoy the regular aspects of life and the fact that at this time there are very little distractions, and an opportunity to make some more time to go within. Be healthy, eat well, meditate, practice hygiene, be in a space of love, and think twice about what fact-checkers are trying to debunk.

Update March 16th, 2020: Right after publishing, the NIH Library deleted the study from their archives. I link now directly to PubMed.