COVID, PCR and The Wrongness of Alex Berenson

Michael Siegel

Michael Siegel is an astronomer living in Pennsylvania. He blogs at his own site, and has written a novel.

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51 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    Who is this Alex Berenson? Is he a geneticist, or disease specialist, or just some yutz?Report

  2. Dark Matter says:

    This is how we get attacks on free speech.Report

    • CJColucci in reply to Dark Matter says:

      Berenson is free to say what he wants. The rest of us are free to point and laugh. As far as free speech is concerned, that’s all there is to it.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to CJColucci says:

        I happen to agree with you. The problem comes when nit-wits attract enough people that they damage society. “The election was stolen” would be one problem and “vaccines kill people” would be another.

        We end up very close to “yelling fire in a theatre” territory.

        Even start to open that door and give the gov the ability to regulate this and it instantly becomes “shut down my political opponents”, thus the problem.Report

        • Slade the Leveller in reply to Dark Matter says:

          Did I miss something in the post? I don’t believe Mr. Siegel ever called for a gov’t shutdown of Berenson’s Twitter account.Report

          • Dark Matter in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

            No one in the gov is calling for this. Nor should they, our vaccination rates are still steadily going up. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

            However if this guy is successful at preventing herd immunity, then he’s putting himself into “mass murderer” territory, and giving the rest of us a dilemma.Report

            • Slade the Leveller in reply to Dark Matter says:

              Honestly, I’m having a hard time conjuring up a rationale for Twitter keeping this account open. Nevertheless, it remains active.

              As CJ points out above, Berenson is free to reap what ever harvest comes from his sowing of misinformation and bad takes.Report

            • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

              Donald Trump put himself into mass murderer territory, and other then being a sore election loser has yet to suffer any further penalty for his actions. And yes, he’s still off Twitter and Facebook, but those being private companies they are free to do what they want.

              Nice Red Herring though.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                I don’t think it’s a red herring, I think it’s a serious problem. That Trump has done the same thing doesn’t subtract from it.

                Both men are clearly misusing the power of speech. We have corpses on the ground. It’s very tempting to try to shut them down and add criminal penalties.

                It’s also difficult to picture the gov doing that without those tools instantly being misused. Thus the dilemma.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                And yet the Right is still howling about the Cancel Culture of Trump no longer being on Twitter and and Facebook, and trying to tar Democrats with that outcome.

                That aside, if people are “putting themselves” in mass murder territory via social media, then how should we make sure they are held accountable? Public shaming sure as hell doesn’t work anymore.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                how should we make sure they are held accountable?

                I’m not sure. It might be that losing an election and being kicked off of Twitter is enough for Trump… although it’s disturbing that we see various elected officials being pressured to endorse the whole “stolen election” concept (and more disturbing to see how many do endorse it).

                Trump showcases just how much less than rational we are. He’s obviously wrong on all sorts of factual stuff and a significant part of the population refuse to accept that. This should raise the issue of not only what we do about him, but what we do in general. All of the previous Presidents had problems, their detractors probably had a lot more truth on their side than their supporters could admit.

                Ignoring that, for your normal anti-vac disinformation spreader, it’s hard to see anything working short of penalties and legal action.

                However I’m not sure we can punish our way to victory here. What do we do when a Jehovah Witness insists on dying rather than getting the blood that would save them? What do we do when they insist on that for their minor child? It feels like we’re in something close to that. This “identity” and lack of reason stuff is religion in all but name.

                Now what I’d like to do is have society tell people what rational thinking is and oppose magic thinking of all types, but I think that mindset is a tiny minority and this wouldn’t work.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                although it’s disturbing that we see various elected officials being pressured to endorse the whole “stolen election” concept (and more disturbing to see how many do endorse it).

                And again we see that non-judicial social accountability won’t work for these folks. Their path to remain in power REQUIRES them to adhere to and promote this fiction. Twitter bans haven’t stopped Trump or his supporters – the state of Arizona is currently wasting untold millions to do an “audit” of election returns whose sole purpose is to feed Trump’s ego so Republican state legislators can stay in power. Because they consider it a legitimate means to an end they will not be shamed. And because election security seems to be a state legislative function as well as a secretary of state function they will not likely do anything prosecutable either.

                This is a real, dangerous to democracy slippery slope. What do we do about it?Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Philip H says:

                I hate to point this out, but isn’t the fact that we’ve largely enforced a bi-partisan system (rather than allowing for a greater diversity of political parties) part of the problem?

                Ideally, there would be an alternative conservative party with enough clout to make a play to step in an push the nutjobs out. But we only have one politically functional right-wing party.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Yes it is part of the problem. I’d be happy with a multi party system. As I’ve discussed in other threads around here, most third or fourth or fifth parties always want to start at the top with a presidential bid and not at the bottom with city councils and county commissions.Report

              • dhex in reply to Philip H says:

                it’s a coke and pepsi world out there; not a lot of love for cheerwine beyond their small gang of adherents, most of whom have odd, unusual, or downright unsavory customs and beliefs (like drinking cheerwine).

                a great realignment would be neat, if extremely chaotic.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                the state of Arizona is currently wasting untold millions to do an “audit” of election returns whose sole purpose is to feed Trump’s ego…

                This is fine. A significant percentage of the population questions the election, an audit is a fair request.

                You know and I know what the result will be, but process is important. An investigation into the truth fine.

                Now after they find out the election was fine (again), I doubt the issue will go away. We’ve looked into various religious claims over the years and found they’re not a thing and nothing changes.Report

              • Audits were done. Multiple audits. The AZ state senate Republicans don’t want an audit. They hired a company with no experience to rifle through the ballots and the counting hardware and announce that fraud had very likely occurred.

                The firm has fought tooth and nail to avoid revealing how they are conducting the audit. Where such information has come to light, multiple errors and violations of state law for handling ballots have shown up. This week, after the court forced them to reveal some of their documentation, they were using rules that would have misclassified tens of thousands of ballots. Earlier this week instructions to examiners were changed to “put an emphasis on speed rather than accuracy.”

                It is highly unlikely they will complete counting the ballots before the lease on the space expires. They have said they “hope” they can find a way to secure the election materials while the space is open to the public for multiple high school graduations over several days, then resume counting.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Michael Cain says:

                So we’re past looking at stuff (again) and even (maybe) past boondoggle and into “crimes against democracy”.

                The good news is that’s probably illegal so we may have tools to do something about it… similar to how suing various media outlets for Billion+ of dollars of rep damage will do something.

                The bad news is that will take time and we’re into crimes against democracy.Report

              • I have a terrible track record with this sort of prediction, but I predict that after consulting with their legal counsel, Cyber Ninjas’ final report will be some variation of “We found no evidence of systematic fraud. Arizona’s election was a model of security and accuracy.”Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Cain says:

                You assume they are consulting with legal counsel. If they had been, legal counsel would have probably told them to run, don’t walk, away from the whole thing at the start.Report

              • Phjilip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Nah – as long as the check cleared they are probably fine with it.Report

              • Since Election Day, there have been a (to me) remarkable number of people who didn’t appear to have spoken with counsel until they had to appear in court.

                I’m looking forward, in an odd sort of way, to seeing what happens when Maricopa County sues for the cost to recertify all of their voting equipment.Report

              • JS in reply to Michael Cain says:

                Cyber Ninjas is owned by a True Fraud Believer.

                The question is he the sort that thought he’d be able to quickly find the fraud that had to be there — or the sort that thought he’d make such a mess he could claim anything and it couldn’t be sorted out after?

                Which one he is will determine how this endsReport

              • Philip H in reply to JS says:

                I’d say the second is more likely. Easier to keep getting paid.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                This is fine. A significant percentage of the population questions the election, an audit is a fair request.

                That portion of the public mistrusts the outcome based on significant propaganda ginned up by the losers who crave power above all else. Those people have yet to be satisfied by the audits and checks performed by election officials of the Big Lie Party, and will not be satisfied by the results of this one either.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H says:

                Yes. It’s like no matter how many times we discover “praying doesn’t do anything” that doesn’t convince the masses.

                This is a fire, it may burn itself out. Certainly overthrowing the gov doesn’t seem to be in the works.

                Big picture, considering we have a “say/do anything narcissistic billionaire sociopath with tens of millions of followers”, I think we’re doing pretty well.

                We have five dead bodies but the system as a whole doesn’t seem to be in danger and the people who created the bodies have been arrested.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Dog in burning room gifReport

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                5 dead bodies isn’t even a bad weekend in Chicago, much less the US as a whole.

                The GOP may be on fire, but the rest of the system thus far seems able to handle it.

                If we have more dead bodies created by crazy politicians, the expectation should be that the people involved will be arrested and not that they overthrow democracy.

                These are problems. They’re even serious problems. They don’t rise to the level of threatening the country.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                If your metric for “unfree” countries is measured in bodies, then North Korea is a remarkably free place.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Believe it or not, the New York Times has a story about that sort of thing! Like, from *TODAY*.

                Report

              • Slade the Leveller in reply to Jaybird says:

                Those people must have really been hard up.Report

              • I am reminded of this poem of Shel Silverstein’s:

                The One who Stayed

                -by Shel Silverstein

                You should have heard the old men cry
                You should have heard the biddies
                When that sad stranger raised his flute
                And piped away the kiddies.
                Katy, Tommy, Meg and Bob
                Followed skipping gaily,
                Red-haired Ruth, my brother Ron
                And crippled Bailey,
                John and Nils and Cousin Claire
                Dancin’, spinnin’, turnin’
                ‘Cross the hills to God knows where—
                They never came returnin’
                ‘Cross the hills to God knows where
                The piper pranced a leadin’
                Each child in Hamlin town but me
                And I stayed home unheedin’.

                My papa says that I was blest
                For if that music found me,
                I’d be witch-cast like the rest
                This town grows old around me.

                I cannot say I did not hear
                That sound so hauntin’ hollow—
                I heard, I heard, I heard it clear . . .
                I was afraid to follow.

                Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.

                On the off chance you are, I suggest you google “number of people killed by north korea”.

                We think they have 318 public execution sites for “crimes” such as watching SK TV. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48590691

                Of course that doesn’t include the people being worked to death, or starved to death, etc.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Wow, any nation where the government kills that many people should be considered a dystopian nightmare.

                Look, the silliness here is that measuring unfreedom by body counts is that by definition, a nation is unfree when the government has no need to kill in order to remain in power.

                After Stalin’s purges, the number of killings went down drastically.. because everyone got the point.
                But according to your logic, since the body count went down, the USSR experienced a rise in freedom.

                The threat to American democracy is in the Republican Party’s insistence on suppressing votes and rigging the counts.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Suppressing votes

                At the moment, the definition of “suppressing votes” is a disagreement on whether or not criminals should be able to vote and whether we should insist on ID (like Sweden and the rest of the countries we call “free” do).

                Rigging the counts

                At the moment, everyone agrees on how to count the votes we just have Trump insisting that the count must not have been right.

                measuring unfreedom by body counts is that by definition, a nation is unfree

                Fine. I was too subtle.

                The amount of political violence we’ve seen is one riot and 5 dead bodies. In a country with BLM (which is also not a threat in the big scheme of things), the only reason this even starts to look bad is it disrupted the certification of the vote.

                The number of court rulings being ignored is roughly zero. The number of falsified vote totals is thus far zero. Ignoring the riot which ended with people being arrested, Trump and his minions have thus far attempted to overthrow the election in courts by following the process.

                Because facts matter and the courts screen out emotional bullshit, Trump has lost (while maintaining he’s winning) and will continue to lose.

                The real breaking point is when enough people become willing to throw over the table and fight. We’re getting closer to that line and Trump is certainly encouraging it, but at the moment this ends with Trump becoming a demented old man and not a scary political leader.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

                You place too much faith in people who want to cling to power in a rapidly changing world they refuse to embrace. Assuming the Arizona recount goes the way its predecessors go, there will be further moves made to toss the remaining uncooperative republicans out of office. Once that happens, and especially if Trump is not indicted by then, 2022 will be the last time we have to stop this with the existing institutions of democracy. People around you may not be willing to take up the pitch forks just yet, but do not assume others are not.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                ” everyone agrees on how to count the votes we just have Trump insisting that the count must not have been right.”

                This is flatly false.

                The main body of the Republican Party at this very moment is insisting that the vote was illegitimate.

                And they are doing anything in their power to prevent Democratic-favorable areas from voting.

                At this point, they make the voting in Bulgaria circa 1955 look free and clean.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                ExactlyReport

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                The main body of the Republican Party at this very moment is insisting that the vote was illegitimate.

                We’re deep into insanity and fuzzy religious thinking, where two plus two no longer equals four. People claim they seriously believe God will protect them from all harm but their behavior doesn’t match up with that.

                Supposedly we have tons of people seriously believe that an election was stolen. The number of protests is small and going down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_United_States_election_protests#Pro-Trump_protests It’s a fraction of what we had in 2016.

                It is normal and expected for there to be protests after the other team wins. The rhetoric is much worse this year and they’re crossing lines they really shouldn’t. Trump is making it much worse.

                However if we’re going to use the anti-Bush rhetoric or anti-Trump protests as the standard and call that legit, then the behavior (although not the rhetoric) seems within norms.

                And they are doing anything in their power to prevent Democratic-favorable areas from voting.

                Link?

                Bulgaria circa 1955 look free and clean.

                This sounds like a “North Korea is free compared to us” statement of feeling rather than a fact.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                What percentage of elected Republicans are willing to say the election was fair and legitimate?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                What percentage of elected Republicans are willing to say the election was fair and legitimate?

                What percentage of elected Democrats are willing to say not only are the Police not hunting down and killing Blacks, but Black culture plays a big role in structural racism?

                That marriage rates are hugely important and predictive while microaggressions may not be a real thing?Report

  3. fillyjonk says:

    What I don’t understand about guys like this: do they actually believe what they’re spouting, that they’re some brave truth-teller saying things that people who literally have the job of doing this stuff don’t know? Or are they in it for the attention and money and don’t care if it puts people at risk?

    Like, I have certain expertise in certain areas. I’m a biologist (ecology), but I would not make claims about what PCR can and cannot do – because while I know how PCR works (basically), I recognize I don’t know enough of the ins and outs of it all to feel confident making claims and instead defer to the people who actually do this for a living….Report

    • Dark Matter in reply to fillyjonk says:

      At best we’re in “people believe what they want to believe” territory and that’s going to line up with what helps them (makes them more powerful, richer, etc).

      Think of it this way, the rest of his life is fine, good, and full filling… and depends on him believing this absurdity.

      Mostly we see this sort of mental leap in religion.Report

    • It’s not even a matter of being an expert. It’s a matter of reading straight-forward sentences describing things. I’m an astronomer and it became immediately obvious to me that what they were saying was wrong and contradicted by their own sources.Report

  4. David Paz says:

    From the posted August 29, 2020 New York Times article titled “Your Coronavirus Test is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be”:

    https://cnas.ucr.edu/media/2020/08/29/your-coronavirus-test-positive-maybe-it-shouldnt-be

    “The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.

    This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients, although it could tell them how infectious the patients are.

    In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.

    On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a database maintained by The Times. If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.

    One solution would be to adjust the cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.

    Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, (Harvard epidemologists)Dr. (Michael)Mina said.

    Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.Report

    • This isn’t false positives; it’s low viral loads at the time of the test. Viral loads change over the course of the infection. A barely detectable virus can become a massive problem in a few days. Or not become a problem. There’s no way to tell short of waiting for the patient to get really sick or doing more testing.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Siegel says:

        It’s not really a problem unless such results are being used to dictate policy/lockdowns/etc.

        If, for instance, PCRs above 35 are being counted as positive infections, regardless of symptoms at the time of the test, or within the next 14 days, then you run the risk of policy reacting to signal noise.

        But if such tests are just being used to inform a person that they had a positive test and they should quarantine for 14 days to see if symptoms develop, that’s just being prudent.

        If there isn’t, there should be a re-test threshold. If the PCR was above, say 17, you re-test in 5 days unless symptoms develop, and it doesn’t become a positive infection result for statistical purposes unless you get symptoms or a PCR below 17.

        So it depends on how a given state/county/city is using such data.Report

  5. Veritea says:

    This is an interesting take on the CDC’s new guidelines. I presume then that COVID infections in vaccinated individuals is first determined using the high-amplification PCR test and then, after confirmation of the infection a second low-amplification test is performed?

    Because if there is just one test at the lower amplification that is chosen for use because of the known vaccination status of the individual then… Berenson would actually be correct in assessment?Report