According to a NYU study, the legendary five-minute Abbott coronavirus test misses close to 50 percent of positive infections.
Abbott disputes this. The company claims its own false negatives are just .02 percent and it is not convinced NYU did the tests correctly.
Also of note is that the NYU study has not yet been peer reviewed, so nothing is official.
This test is the one currently in use at the White House and the one President Trump touts as the five-minute test because it can produce a positive result in five to 13 minutes, and a negative result in 13 minutes.
The best thing about the test is that it is self-contained. You can ship these things all over the world, to any place that wants to do testing. With some training, the testing and results can all be done right there. Nothing has to be shipped to a lab.
To which I say, who gives a shit.
Come on, y’all… Wake up.
We can’t test our way out of this. We can’t vaccine our way out of this. We can’t quarantine our way out of this. We can’t lockdown our way out of this.
This is an infectious disease, an especially infectious infectious disease with no cure, and that means it is eventually going to catch up to all of us.
Sorry, it just is.
I know you don’t want to believe that. I know you want to believe you’re living through a real-life disaster movie where we can all hide out until Dustin Hoffman or Matt Damon save the day at the last minute, but that’s not how life works.
There is still no vaccine for the Spanish Flu of 1918 that wiped out 50 to 100 million. There is still no cure for the Hong Kong Flu of 1969 that wiped out one to three million. Both of those viruses ran their course, and what “saved” us was either herd immunity or the virus mutating into something less lethal, or a combination of both.
The only person in this country not spewing bullshit right now is Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who said out loud, the China Virus is going to rage “until it infects everybody it possibly can,” which means it “surely won’t slow down until it hits 60 to 70 percent” of the population.
And there it is…
Once the coronavirus infects 60 to 70 percent of the population we achieve herd immunity, and herd immunity is probably going to be the only way out of this.
Two things would not surprise me: 1) We never-ever-ever come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus, or 2) we achieve herd immunity before we come up with the vaccine.
This testing narrative is total bullshit. Whether it’s a five minute test or a five second test or a five month test, it’s all bullshit.
You can go out and get your precious little five minute test, test negative, and then immediately walk out the door and catch the coronavirus by walking through an empty hallway — well, empty except for the mist of coronavirus still hanging in the air from the guy who sneezed just before he turned a corner.
And let’s split it down the middle… Let’s say your magic five-minute test only gets it wrong 25 percent of the time…
You want to know what’s worse than testing positive for the virus? Testing negative when you’re positive. Because now you believe you’re not infected and cannot infect anyone else, and then you go and give grandma (who actually should be quarantining) a big hug to celebrate testing negative and you just killed grandma.
It really is better to not get tested and just be careful, especially around grandma, no?
This is all so stupid… and pointless. Lockdowns are stupid and pointless. Massive testing is stupid and pointless — so stupid and pointless, we have more tests than people who want to take them.
The only testing the government can do that makes sense is to test enough to ensure our health care system does not get overwhelmed by way of a new cluster of infections somewhere. That’s it. That’s the only testing the government can and should worry about. We want to be able to save everyone who can be saved, so we don’t want the health system to crash. That makes perfect sense. That’s a worthy goal.
That’s the only realistic goal. The rest is bullshit.
The only testing the health care system needs to do is of those with coronavirus symptoms so they know how to best treat the patient — because hopefully some of these therapeutics eventually bear fruit. That makes perfect sense. That’s a worthy goal. That’s the only realistic goal. The rest is bullshit.
Massive testing is ridiculous and pointless, a phony balm for a crybaby country that believes life should be without risk and if there is a risk that can only mean Big Daddy Government isn’t doing enough… Just ask crybabies like ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
You want to stay quarantined, stay quarantined. No one’s stopping you. No one’s pulling you out of your home. But can we please stop with this bullshit about how testing and lockdowns are a cure, how a vaccine is right around the corner?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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