A Time for Bravery

The following is a submission I made to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal March 18 2021. As usual there is no guarantee it will be published, especially when actual facts are cited. They don't appear to like that type of essay for some reason. Even so, I try as it has a wider reach than just posting here so I hope they do publish. I do admit that has been on purpose in that while I make my writings publicly available I really am torn in that I value my privacy. Thus I have made little effort to expand the reach of this blog. 

George Carlin on how to be Brave

As a scientist the one trait I and others like me were taught, no matter our specialty, is how to do research. “Science” is really a process and is not a result. It is based on observation and research. The latter can involve experiments in the lab but also the reviewing the works of others. As such that is a reason why any scientist worth their salt, can become knowledgeable in any field they want to, up to a point. We all share the ability to do research by reading technical journals, analysing the data presented and drawing relevant conclusions. The key factor for many of us though is we ask questions; we try not to accept dogma.

Since the onset of what has now been identified as SARS-CoV2, a corona virus that can attack the respiratory system, I have been paying close attention. The first question I had was “is this virus as deadly as the media are trying to make it out to be”? I was very suspicious as every year for as far back as I can remember there have been warnings of having another true pandemic like the Spanish Flu. Yet nothing really happened. Examples are the Asian Flu, back in the late 1950’s; beginning in the early 1980’s it was going to be AIDS; around 2009 the Swine Flu was going to be it; beginning in 2014 Ebola was going to be it; beginning in 2015 Zika was going to be it; and now we have Covid-19. Is it going to be it even though the others all proved to not be the scourge they were first made out to be?

Early in 2020 there were two events that were good petri-dish type experiments in that they were closed systems whereby we could check out how easily the virus spread, how many were susceptible and how deadly it really is as there was no way to avoid being exposed. These are the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. In both cases almost all on the two ships were tested for the virus, admittedly using a technique of unproven value, the RT-PCR test. This part is important so let us take a moment to review what it is.

Using a couple of enzymes that act as catalysts, one can first take a strand of RNA, as found in viruses, and convert it into a double-stranded piece of DNA. Then, by heating and cooling the sample multiple times with the sample in a bath filled with bits and pieces of DNA proteins, one can duplicate a strand of DNA until one has enough pieces that they can be analysed. Amongst those bits and pieces are two specific types: “primers” that are specific pieces of DNA that are unique to our target; and pieces of DNA protein called “probes” that will fluoresce when exposed to certain wavelengths of light that can then be detected using a photodetector. The key though is having enough pieces of the duplicated DNA to produce a detectable signal.

Another especially important aspect is that you need to set a cycle threshold to see if there is a measurable signal. If detected, then it is a “positive”, if not then it is “negative”. It is here we run into a problem; what is the minimum number of cycles we should run? Keep in mind that a single strand of RNA will generate, using RT-PCR, 1.07 billion strands of DNA after 30 cycles, 34.36 billion after 35 cycles and 1.1 trillion after 40 cycles. Where should we draw the line? Too high and you get far too many false positives and too low we get false negatives. Public Heath England has published a guidebook which has this caution: “A single Ct value in the absence of clinical context cannot be relied upon for decision making about a person’s infectivity”. This same guide states “a typical RT-PCR assay will have a maximum of 40 thermal cycles” yet indicates that 26 is a better threshold.

Now back to our petri-dishes. The test results for both ships were remarkably similar. Approximately 20% of all on board both ships tested positive. Of those, only half actually developed symptoms. And of the approximately 8000 people involved, 15 died, most over 70 and with pre-existing medical conditions. People who were just trying to check off one more item on their “bucket list” before the end they knew was imminent due to their age.

Thus, began the rise of a cascade of questions for which I have been unable to find answers. First and foremost, for a new virus, how were they able to develop in such a short period of time a “test” that truly was reliable in that only “primers” unique to SARS-CoV2 were isolated and then mass produced to be used in test kits? Something in the past that would have taken years and they did it in a couple of months? How was it determined what cycle threshold should be used? Knowing that too high of a threshold easily can produce false positives how many of the positives from the two ships were due to false positives? Why are governments around the world, assisted by most media sources, making us fear a virus that is in the same order of magnitude of deaths, and is not more communicable, than that any other virus in the recent past? Why are civil servants who are tasked with ensuring our good health acting like tyrants by ignoring our fundamental freedoms, ignoring science, and even ignoring basic human decency by imposing irrational, nonsensical and anti-science “rules”? Why were these rues not vetted by our elected representatives? The latest example of this tyranny is the floating of the idea of “passports” to travel unless you have had a vaccination using a vaccine with unverified safety and effectiveness, something in the recent past took years due to the time to rigorously evaluate? Why has our society been so willing to give up the rights and freedoms supposedly guaranteed in our Constitution with barely a grumble? And worst of all, why do so many of us feel it is right to condone and assist the tyrants amongst us by siding with them?

There is no science that supports what we are doing to ourselves. I just hope enough of us come to our collective senses and stop this cruelty and return to a time where we respect the rights of others and face our demons with bravery rather than cowardice.