In Northern Ireland we’re fed daily diet of doom based on Covid case numbers

Northern Ireland are currently low, but we’re fed a daily diet of doom based entirely on cases.

Many of these new cases have no symptoms and don’t develop the disease or require hospitalisation. So how many are actually “cases” at all?

On September 22, asked by Sky News why the UK doesn’t do Covid tests at airports, Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb replied: “The challenge is that the false positive rate is very high, so only 7% of tests will be successful in identifying those that actually have the virus.”

In an article co–written with Dr Tom Jefferson on September 19, Professor Carl Heneghan, editor-in-chief of Evidence Based Medicine in The British Medical Journal explained that “increased Covid testing is picking up dead – entirely harmless – fragments of virus as well as genuine infections. So many of the positive results we think we are getting might not be positives at all”.

The test used for Covid is called PCR, invented by Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis. He urged caution interpreting results because “with PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody”.

Each test sample goes through a number of laboratory cycles, looking for viral RNA. If no RNA is found in the first cycle, the process is repeated over and over again, each time at higher amplification. As the number of cycles and magnification increases, it’s possible to identify smaller and smaller fragments.

Covid tests in the Republic use up to 35 – 45 cycles and Northern Ireland most likely does the same. The number of cycles is crucial in determining how many false positives are generated.

Above 35 cycles, results become less and less reliable. Tiny RNA fragments detected after 40 or even 45 cycles are, quite incredibly, recorded as positive even though there’s hardly any chance of being infectious. This is equivalent to always failing the breathalyser, no matter how small your alcohol reading.

Prof Heneghan says: “The way we’re deploying the test at the moment is in a sort of ragbag way that says whatever amount of RNA you’ve got on board you are positive. “

Despite this “ragbag” approach, these positive tests are used to justify more and more restrictions and threaten further lockdowns. Consequently, cancer screening and therapy and other urgent conditions suffer long delays, with several patients too frightened to attend important hospital appointments. The government calls this “saving lives”.

Clinical symptoms should be paramount in diagnosing Covid, not blind devotion to dubious test results. Endless scare mongering about cases only benefits those who want to frighten us. The sole purpose of mandatory masks and exaggerated case numbers is to heighten fear. It’s a trap, set to blackmail us into accepting an unnecessary vaccine, digital immunity passports and ever increasing control of our lives.

Patrick McGinnity MVB, MRCVS

Derrynoose, Armagh