Trinity County COVID Cluster Doesn’t Exist, Report Based on False Positives
Press release from Trinity County Health and Human Services:
On October 3, 2020, Trinity County Public Health Branch (TCPHB) had reported lab confirmation of seven (7) persons who tested positive for COVID-19 in Trinity County, being referred to as a ‘cluster’ and involving Trinity Hospital, Mountain Community Healthcare District.
These original specimens were tested through a high complexity Public Health Lab (PHL) and reported to TCPHB on October 3, 2020. Due to concerns voiced by Trinity Hospital Administration, TCPHB coordinated with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the PHL that tested the original specimens, to send these original specimens to the state Viral and Ricksettial Disease Laboratory (VRDL) for confirmatory testing and genome testing if confirmed positive.
TCPHB received notification this morning from VRDL that the original specimens tested on October 2, 2020 did not demonstrate SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) through confirmatory testing by VRDL. Our Hospital Administration has been notified and appropriate action will be taken, including TCPHB rescinding isolation and quarantine orders. This discrepancy in test results of the original specimens is currently under investigation between the Shasta PHL and VRDL.
Since false positive tests are uncommon, the TCPHB acts on all lab confirmed positive tests, and if necessary will work with the CDPH on confirmatory testing as appropriate as in this case.
For local information and statistics or to find additional resources visit www.trinitycounty.org.
Earlier Chapters:
- COVID Cluster in Trinity County
- Two More Added to Trinity County Cluster
- Trinity County COVID Cluster Grows to 10 Positive Cases
- Trinity Hospital, Mountain Community Healthcare District, Is Center of Cluster of COVID Cases
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“Since false positive tests are uncommon…” are they now?
They’re less common than all kinds of things, like stars, or grains of sand in the ocean, or people on the planet.
But more common than ivory-billed woodpeckers…
Question is do false negative and positive tests balance out. From this study it looks like negatives are worse.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2015897
In a preprint, Yang et al. described 213 patients hospitalized with Covid-19, of whom 37 were critically ill. In days 1 through 7 after onset of illness, 11% of sputum, 27% of nasal, and 40% of throat samples were deemed falsely negative.
Question is, how many people are getting tested because their employer requires it. That would produce an abundance of false positives that could be a majority of the positive cases. How many people are being tested with no symptoms, I would bet alot, this country wouldn’t survive without doctors , end of story. Common sense reveals the truth about COVID-19, no more deadly than the common flu to young healthy people . Young as in under 80, if the smoke from the fires screwed you up, maybe consider yourself a risk for covid, just so more common sense .
Just search “covid false positive tests”… a lot reports out there…
Depending on the test the Lancet puts false positives at 1-4%.
The US has administered 111 million tests. That’s 1-4 million false positives… which, on the high end, is more than half the total cases in the USA.
If accurate, that means the CFR is double what is currently reported.
https://covidtracking.com/data/national
Why the cluster of false positives?
There was a lot of bad information involved here, and the hysteria doesn’t help!
In the Clinical Lab, the tests are only as good as the specimen! The person collecting the specimen may not be trained, may be rushed, the patient may not be cooperative, and the specimen may not have been transported to the lab under the right conditions!
The guy in the lab might make errors, the testing supplies may be defective, the analyzer device might be mis-calibrated, etc, etc…
Clinical Labs are required to have trained, licensed, competent people working in them, but the epidemic has left us in a situation where we have short staff, some questionable conditions and some folks who may not be the best choices doing the sampling, like at Optum Care, a hastily cobbled-together place employing quickly trained non-professionals…
The test is as good as the sample collector, the specimen handling, the person doing the test, and everyone in the chain, plus the equipment!
The Clinical staff must also be able to recognise when the test results don’t match the clinical picture, and tests should be repeated, whenever necessary.
Nasal swabs are a pretty poor specimen, there are a lot of variables, and we don’t have a blood test. Too many labs have rushed to perform “quick tests” with not enough staff, because they are getting paid to do them and the patients want the test.
Demand a competent specimen collector, a well-staffed and reputable laboratory, and, if you are asymptomatic, you don’t need a test! Being scared is not the same as being sick!
And, don’t believe everything you may read about Clusters and Centers, as some press releases contain information that is inaccurate.
Take care of yourself, stay home, wear your mask, monitor temperatures yourself, don’t have parties or weddings, take your Vitamin C and D, get a flu shot, don’t smoke… Be reasonable and cautious.
We will have Regeneron’s Antibody Cocktail and a working vaccine, we hope, and yes, some people will expire from CoV-19. There are many variables here but fear is useless in combating an infectious agent!
Hang in there!
If 1 to 4 percent is considered uncommon, wouldn’t it be fair to say that it would be “uncommon “ to die from covid since it has a lower fatality rate than that?
Excellent point. The error rate is 10 to 40 times higher than the mortality rate.
No it’s not. That is the death rate, actually.
You must be confusing the common flu, and you’re also lumping in deaths from pneumonia then, too. Only 3,000 – 10,000 people actually die from the flu annually. The CDC statistic includes pneumonia deaths in their calculation.
Umm, no. Check your numbers.
You folks are doing some highly dubious math. Maybe it’s not your strong suit?
The cool thing about math is you can prove that there are errors.
Feel free to demonstrate.
There is no reason to bother. You can’t produce any statistically meaningful conclusions if your data set is garbage. All testing data is garbage because it’s not being done in a controlled way. Any person competent in basic statistics know this.
That’s been my assertion since day 1.
The WHO just announced that the overall case mortality is trending towards 0.14%… which is close to seasonal flu, but as there are more people testing positive that percentage will continue to trend down.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/
It’s a false pandemic. The fact that anyone still believes in this total lie after nine months of endless proof that it’s not anything to be concerned about is the most depressing revelation of 2020. There is no plague but I’ve never been more hopeful that one would come.
Reader,
thanks, well said.
200,000 dead in the US alone?
After 10 months its proven to be almost twice as deadly as the flu, taking into consideration the normal flu season is 4 months. So without masks and distanced and sheltering probably right at twice as deadly, go Joe Camel 2020!
Kym, there are people who desperately want to believe that this is all a lie because it’s the only way the rest of their worldview makes any sense to them. They are willing to ignore all kinds of data and facts because that’s the nature of belief — just ask any fervent fundamentalist of any religion.
It’s kind of the same way evangelicals are able to overlook all of Trump’s lies, adultery, stealing, and fraud (he’s broken all of the commandments so many times and with no remorse it’s ridiculous) and still declare him as the path to righteousness and salvation.
So in that regard, this refusal to acknowledge the seriousness fits right into the pattern that ‘true believers’ follow — anything that rebuts their position must have been faked to meet an agenda of the new world order.
🕯🌳I’ll second that.
Likewise. The false postive results (florida labs with 100% positives, deaths wrongly attributed and assumed, forced nursing home deaths, virus immunity while sitting and eating, harm/deaths due to lockdowns and now the trinity cluster) they too must be overlooked by you and by many.
I operate on the assumption that people are people and some of those folks are more competent at their jobs than others. That’s why I try to focus on what the consensus of scientific studies suggest as the best current state of knowledge and recognize that it will change as we learn more. Then I can adjust my responses and choice to current conditions as we learn and progress.
Some of the things we thought when the virus was first reported have evolved even as the virus itself seems to have evolved. That’s kind of the way the process works. Not running around shouting that it’s all a conspiracy put on by some mysterious cabal that rules the world from the shadows. You don’t need a conspiracy when plain old (often dumb) human choices will suffice as the best explanation.
Kinda like only 22k died of h1n1, I mean flu, this season. *wink*wink
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Covid and influenza thin the weak , primarily .
And our individual risk of manifesting active disease symptoms – if exposed (to ANY virus or bacteria) – is highly variable depending on immune response, which is positively influenced by things like hydration; Sun; nutrition; fresh air and exercise; and it is proven to be negatively influenced by things like prescription drugs (even over-the-counter drugs like antacids which have a detrimental effect on our immune response) alcohol ; and of course pre-existing conditions like being overweight, or diabetic .
Don’t forget , a whopping 650k die in the USA annually, and many hundred of thousands more are disabled, from cardiovascular disease, and “events ” like stroke! 25-50% of all mortalities are linked to our pathetic diet/lifestyle .
No one says a peep about those largely preventable funerals .
But soggy masks are all the rage.
Source : As of 2018, 30.3 million U.S. adults were diagnosed with heart disease. Every year, about 647,000 Americans die from heart disease, making it the leading cause of death in the United States. Heart disease causes 1 out of every 4 deaths .
Includes Diseases: Atherosclerosis; Coronary artery disease
Includes causes of death: Myocardial infarction
Risk Factors: Diabetes; Hypertension
Heart disease is not very “sexy.” The verdict is in: Americans would much rather eat what they eat, drink what they drink, and sit on their butts 90% of the time than eliminate their high risk of heart disease. It’s been that way for decades.
And of course, we would rather be able to get in our cars whenever we want to go wherever we want, rather than eliminate the risk of dying in an auto accident.
And we love to put absolute faith in the gods of modern medicine, even though medical malpractice is also a top killer… we would never stay away from the doctor for our own good.
But if the sacrifice is to wear a mask, stay home and play on the internet, and be praised as a socially-conscious lover of humanity above all else– of course they do that. I guess it’s still “sexy” to them after 7 or 8 months. I don’t mind the mask, but i don’t buy the hype. How could i? I just look around.
I hope you can say that a year from now. I’d love to be wrong.
Those 220,000 deaths happened you know, *over there* and not in your view.
But they sure affected SOMEONE.
Those deaths … 650,000 from heart disease.
I have heart disease so did my grandpa, dad, mother, older brother. All now dead because they were tobacco smokers.
I can fight off heart disease, covid, stupidity, and socialists. Just get out of the way.
I know that. It’s always sad and tragic when death affects you personally.
The fact that they didn’t happen to people (not many, for sure) around here is what counts, though. Did you make sure you were super careful to wash your hands, and maybe don a mask, when Ebola was killing over 11,000 people in Africa a few years ago?
No. It’s human nature– or at least the feature of a healthy psychology– not to waste time and energy mourning (and fretting about) that over which we have no control. And that which, up until the time of instant global communication, would not have even been known to us. A blessed bubble of real-time, immediate-surroundings awareness kept us from having to stress about every problem on the planet when for most people, friends, family, and community are about as much as we’re built to handle.
Ask yourself some hard questions. If you could trade having a close family member or lover die for not reading that thousands of people died in a natural disaster halfway around the world one morning, which would you choose? Of course, you can’t choose, and luckily you don’t have to… but if you’re honest, you would probably admit that reading or not reading a headline about “Thousands dead in SE Asian Tsunami” wouldn’t make much difference in your life, but the death of a loved one would be profound.
So yes, of course those 220,000+ deaths affected people. Lots of people, and i am sorry for them. But i look around here and see 99+ percent of people unaffected and increasingly annoyed with having to wear an off-the-shelf suit when response to this virus should be tailor-made for the circumstances. And it’s not just a matter of vanity– our response has affected people’s lives– their finances, their passions, their psychological health– in many ways that ARE visible, right here and now.
Though many coastal communities have greatly expanded and improved their tsunami alert, warning and evacuation systems and plans since the SE Tsunamis.
So events of the world create change in the world.
We are currently in a large and unplanned adjustment period for humanity and Covid.
200,000 deaths not all attributed to Covid alone, only less than 10%
most of the deaths had 2 or more pre-exsisting conditions,
even if they died in a car accident and were tested positive it would be counted. Really!
Whenever anyone says this, I know they don’t have much experience at looking at someone’s death. Almost all deaths have comorbidities. When I die, my comorbidities will at least include obesity. That doesn’t mean that whatever actually killed me (say maybe cancer,) wasn’t responsible. Same with COVID.
It might be helpful for you to look at a death certificate–Comorbidities are listed on almost all deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/blue_form.pdf
So who were they testing originally and why? We’re they symptomatic patients ? Found The answer ,thanks kym .
=======
https://kymkemp.com/2020/10/05/trinity-hospital-mountain-community-healthcare-district-is-center-of-cluster-of-covid-cases/
All Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) in California must test any and all staff or contractors that have the potential to interact with SNF residents, or who must gain entry into the unit for any reason. This cluster was identified through that routine testing at Trinity Hospital, Mountain Community Healthcare District, located at 60 Easter Ave., Weaverville, CA 96093.
Coronavirus: Health experts join global anti-lockdown movement
The declaration has now been signed by nearly 6,000 scientists and medical experts across the globe
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-54442386
There are something like 8 million scientists and 15 million doctors in the world. 6000 of them is not a majority or even an integer percentage.
Same goes ffornthe amount of people dead from coronavirus
Not even an integer.
Did you even read the article?
It is certainly something to be concerned about, but so is the seasonal flu if you’re elderly or have underlying conditions. It does not however justify shuting down the entire United States economy. Tax revenue for California alone is down by over 42%, this is going to have severe impact for years to come.
Sure it’s nothing to be concerned about, until you’re the one sick or dying.
“TRINITY COUNTY COVID CLUSTER DOESN’T EXIST, REPORT BASED ON FALSE POSITIVES “ speaks volumes. Translation, false positives for a fake pandemic that doesn’t exist.
QAnon is also Lying to you too R! Don’t believe everything you read on the dark web! And hey I’m not against conspiracy theories either and was Covid made in a lab? Probably! But I do believe it actually Is real and is killing some people! And will certain people get even more wealthy than they already are off the vaccine 💉 you bet your sweet bum they will! But to say it doesn’t actually Exist? Well that’s just not paying any attention to what’s happening out in the world! But go ahead stick your head a little further in the sand maybe bye the time you pop back up for air it won’t exist any longer? 🤷♀️ It will all magically go away like the tooth fairy 🧚♂️ in the night! Poof gone! No more Covid thank god I woke up nobody died it was all a bad dream!
That’s 200,000 plus Woo Hoo flu related deaths. The actual number of Woo Hoo flu deaths is 6% of that number…or 12,000!!!
Yes, but the unemployment and layoffs need to be bad, because we live in a failed debt-based economy, and we have not had any new wars, so everyone needs laid-off to collect new debt based gov stimulus. A debt based financial system has to ever increase borrowed money!
“TRINITY COUNTY COVID CLUSTER DOESN’T EXIST, REPORT BASED ON FALSE POSITIVES,” speaks volumes.
Good for them for being upfront and admitting they miscalculated. Something our fearless leader would never do.
Our country is #1 at something- death rates from Covid- above India, Brazil Columbia and Russia. All because of your misguided ideas about freedom and distrust of media and the medical world (I do have *some* mistrust also)
Well done Merica!
Youbtrust the media and any politician? Sorry
Our country is #1@something.
Having the#3cause of death be medical malpractice after heart disease and cancer.
But they’re getting it all right on this one, the health experts that is.
How convenient.
This from a hospital whose former ER doctor wasn’t going to lavage a puncture wound from a dirty rake in my ex-wife’s thigh before sewing it shut, let alone give her antibiotics.
Believe ’em if you like.
But as with all things you pay for,
Caveat Emptor.
Amen. Finally some honest news. Anybody happen to stumble on this article today? https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/did-who-just-accidentally-confirm-covid-no-more-dangerous-flu Just wondering, since it’s not ytube or facebok, where it would have already been deleted by the china bots…
Thank you for reporting some truth about the Chinese virus hoax. Not saying the virus isn’t real, but the constant fudging of the numbers and political lies pushing constant fear on people,the lies are enough to make me sick. People walking around with their muzzles on and their heads down being good sheep is bullshit!!!
Kym Kemp, good sound journalism, this time.
Previously your ankle biter insulted me with your humorous agreement, when I stated that the reporting on this exact mistake was the fault of County government. Not the fault of the virus but, purposeful bad journalism spun through the cycle.
We all make mistakes but, your bias could benefit from an attitude adjustment.
It’s good journalism when it agrees with you? and bad when it doesn’t?
I’d say that in neither case was any journalism at all involved. I printed press releases from the County of Trinity.
Actually no, it’s bad journalism when it’s false and sold as truthful. It’s much better for your readers to trust you to check-out the stories you post.
How you edit and mis-manage your comment section is the problem.
Once you begin censoring, you fall into a snake-pit of conflicts.
Press releases are printed in yellow with a green stripe and are clearly labeled as such THAT MEANS THEY ARE NOT FACT CHECKED. They are provided as information from the government or other sources in a handy place.
Now, right here in this one comment you want me to both fact check every government press release (and probably event from a non-profit, etc. as well) with my huge and enormous staff and vast financial resources that you must be willing to provide since I don’t have either and allow every jerk on the internet to spread feces and trash on my website with no check at all…
Not happening, Rod.
I, for one, look forward to Rod’s site where he fact checks every press release he chooses to publish. Several a day at times. Pretty much all by himself. I think he should jump right on that! And deal with a comment section that is full of people carping at him.
I appreciate your work very much, Kym.
Thanks, Angela.
Fun with mumbers.
WHO claims that 10% of the world population may have been infected with covid. That’s 760 million people.
Currently, there has been 1.068 million deaths attributed to covid.
That puts the fatality rate at…
0.14% !!!
(1.068 million/760 million)
That’s approaching flu levels.
But, but, but what about the 200k deaths? Without regards to misattribution, there have been more deaths than the annual flu because the virus is more contagious than influenza and 3 to 4 time more people have contracted covid than flu.
https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nations-54a3a5869c9ae4ee623497691e796083
Influenza hits between 9.3 and 45 million people in the US most years. For COVID-19 it’s between 7.5 million (the confirmed number) and 75 million (if you accept the general premise that there are 10 unconfirmed cases for each confirmed case).
So it’s either a bit less or twice as much, depending on which assumptions you make. As for the total deaths and misattributions, you could look at the number of excess deaths over expected by week and it suggests that COVID-19 related deaths are being undercounted although there’s certainly room to argue there.
If you use the US confirmed figures of ~220k deaths/7.5M cases you end up with a 2.9% case fatality rate in the US. Divide that by 10 for an estimate of infection fatality rate in the US.