Here is a New Interesting Data Point we have NOT heard of…From Jeff Childers .

Ha

There’s a teeny-tiny problem with the test for Omicron. According to the BBC, detecting the Omicron variant requires genetic analysis, which takes 4-5 days to turn around and is much more involved and expensive than the PCR tests.

Stay with me here. The PCR tests currently work by looking for three genetic sequences: the spike (S), the nucleocapsid, or inner part (N2), and the envelope, or “outer shell” (E). So, for a positive test, you need S + N2 + E.

But Omicron has a mutated spike protein that the PCR tests can’t see. So a positive PCR test with only N2 + E but not S “might be” Omicron. Or it could just be a negative test. So, as the BBC explains, further genetic analysis is needed to confirm whether the test actually detected Omicron or not.

Here’s the point. If the labs start counting previously negative tests (only positive for N2 + E) as positives for Covid/Omicron, without following through with the more time-consuming and expensive genetic analysis to confirm it’s Omicron, then we will see higher case numbers, even though a lot of them might not be Covid cases at all.

Calling an N2 + E test a “case” is like picking two letters out of the Scrabble bag and trying to play a three-letter word.

So far, the agencies have done a bang-up job of making sure that the PCR tests only show real Covid positive cases. Haven’t they? So there’s probably nothing to worry about. There’s no reason why anyone would want to artificially inflate the case reports, right? I mean, why would they? It would be so obvious, anyway. We’d see high cases and low hospitalizations. It would be a dead give-away.