Biden administration to suspend free at-home COVID test program Friday



The federal government will reportedly stop giving away free COVID-19 at-home tests on Friday because congressional funding for the program has dried up.

"Ordering through this program will be suspended on Friday, September 2 because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests," the government's free test website reads.

A senior Biden administration official said that in the absence of additional funds appropriated by Congress, the government wants to preserve its stockpile of at-home tests for an expected fall coronavirus surge, NBC News reported.

"If Congress provides funding, we will expeditiously resume distribution of free tests through covidtests.gov," the official reportedly said. "Until then, we believe reserving the remaining tests for distribution later this year is the best course."

"The administration has been clear about our urgent Covid-19 response funding needs," the official added. "We have warned that congressional inaction would force unacceptable tradeoffs and harm our overall Covid-19 preparedness and response — and that the consequences would likely worsen over time."

The Biden administration rolled out its free at-home test program during the Omicron variant surge in January, promising that any American who requested a rapid test would receive one through the United States Postal Service. The Defense Department announced on Jan. 14 that iHealth Labs Inc. had been awarded a $1.275 billion federal contract to produce enough testing kits to serve up to 250 million people.

There was mild controversy surrounding the program when some people who received their free at-home tests were surprised to learn they were made in China. An administration official explained to Fox News that the government had purchased some of the FDA-approved testing kits from abroad because the United States did not have enough manufacturing capacity to produce the volume of tests needed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend that Americans who have coronavirus symptoms be tested immediately. Those who test positive are encouraged to isolate and take precautions, including wearing a high-quality mask to prevent others from being exposed to infection.

While the free at-home test program has been suspended, most Americans still have the opportunity to get a free test at health centers and select pharmacies nationwide. Others may be eligible to have the cost of their tests reimbursed through Medicare or Medicaid.

In March, the White House requested an additional $22.5 billion from Congress to continue COVID-19 relief efforts, warning that the government will be "unable to sustain the testing capacity we built over the last 14 months, as we head into the second half of the year."

However, Congress has not taken action to appropriate additional coronavirus response funding.

Horowitz: Walgreens recorded who tested positive for COVID, and the results might surprise you



Imagine a pharmacy obsessively promoting availability of a vaccine over every inch of its store, while its own data shows there are more infections among those with the jabs. The data is in plain sight for all to see, yet there is no self-awareness from Walgreens because money and power trump reason, compassion, and regard for health outcomes. The company’s latest data actually shows that the more they make money on vaccines, the more they make money on selling you tests, because after being jabbed, you sure will need them!

At the risk of causing one more set of data to disappear from the internet, I draw attention to the Walgreens COVID-19 Index, which posts the weekly number of tests administered, percentage of positives broken down by vaccination status, and age brackets of each permutation. You know, the sort of useful information countries like the U.K. published but that our own CDC artfully avoided showing the American people. Here is the bar chart worth more than 560 million vaccine doses!

As you can see, even though the boosted represent just 30% of the population, they accounted for 61.6% of the positives among the sample of over 60,000 tests administered by Walgreens stores nationwide during the week beginning April 5. The unjabbed accounted for just 17% of the positives, lower than their share of the population.

Also of note is that the unvaccinated had, by far, the lowest positivity rate of all of the cohorts.

Until now, the pharma-paid “fact-checkers” suggested that somehow the reason we are seeing a higher percentage of cases among the jabbed is because they have a culture to test more often than the careless unvaccinated rubes. But this data shows that the unvaccinated actually test more than anyone else, presumably because of workplace testing mandates on those without the shots. This means that there is no undercurrent of uncounted cases among the unvaxxed relative to the jabbed.

The real appalling data is among kids. For those ages 5-11, just 39% of the cases were among the unjabbed, even though they account for 65% of this age cohort.

What is also evident from this data is that the shots seem to go negative as time progressives, as both in the double-jabbed and triple-jabbed cohorts, there was a greater proportion of cases among those who were five months out from their last shot. The data seem to indicate a cumulative effect of negative efficacy that gets worse with each jab, after a short period of slight gains. This works harmoniously with numerous data points we’ve seen from other countries and other studies.

Yes, we understand this is not a well-designed triple-blinded randomized controlled trial, but in the absence of any other data, it sure seems that all of the data we do have paints the same picture. The shots rapidly wane and then go negative. Boosters might temporarily staunch the bleeding, but then you are fighting against rapidly intensifying immune suppression, which engenders an even greater need for more boosters, almost like with a heroin addict.

Even vaccine cheerleader Dr. Paul Offit conceded in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine that there is a real concern of the shots inducing a form of immune suppression known as original antigenic sin. In arguing for a more focused approach to boosters, the pediatrician and immunologist admitted that “boosters are not risk-free” and that “we need to clarify which groups most benefit.”

For example, boys and men between 16 and 29 years of age are at increased risk for myocarditis caused by mRNA vaccines. And all age groups are at risk for the theoretical problem of an “original antigenic sin” — a decreased ability to respond to a new immunogen because the immune system has locked onto the original immunogen. An example of this phenomenon can be found in a study of nonhuman primates showing that boosting with an omicron-specific variant did not result in higher titers of omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies than did boosting with the ancestral strain. This potential problem could limit our ability to respond to a new variant.

In Feb., NIH researchers published a paper in which they admitted original antigenic sin is a real possibility with these shots. “The observation that boosting with either mRNA-1273 or mRNA-Omicron resulted in the expansion of a similarly high frequency of cross-reactive B cells likely stems from the principle of original antigenic sin, otherwise termed antigenic imprinting, whereby prior immune memory is recalled by a related antigenic encounter,” observed the authors.

There is strong evidence from countries in the Pacific Rim, such as New Zealand, that those with more shots are being hammered by the new variants more than the unvaccinated. Original antigenic sin would be a very logical culprit, given that we keep vaccinating for a version of the virus that is obsolete, thereby training the body to respond improperly to the new variants. Pfizer promised an Omicron version of the shot by March, but now suggests it will come out in the fall, even though we are already on to newer variants!

Recently, Stanford researchers found that “prior vaccination with Wuhan-Hu-1-like antigens followed by infection with Alpha or Delta variants gives rise to plasma antibody responses with apparent Wuhan-Hu-1-specific imprinting manifesting as relatively decreased responses to the variant virus epitopes compared with unvaccinated patients infected with those variant viruses.” They note that “the extent to which vaccine boosting or infection with different variants will” induce original antigenic sin “will be an important topic of ongoing study."

Important indeed. But if I remember correctly, we typically study a potential problem with a therapeutic before mass marketing and even mandating it on the public. After all, it’s only the immune systems of an entire world of people on the line.

CDC endorses frequent school COVID testing to keep kids in class and end disruptive quarantines



The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released updated guidance endorsing "test-to-stay" policies that will allow students exposed to someone with COVID-19 to stay in school if they test negative for the virus.

Many school districts across the nation have already implemented these test-to-stay policies, but the CDC's official guidance was not updated until Friday, when the agency published two studies that showed the policies did not lead to increased virus transmission in schools.

“Test-to-stay is an encouraging public health practice to help keep our children in school,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.

Until now, CDC guidance for schools advised that when someone in a school tests positive for COVID-19, anyone who was in close contact with that individual should isolate in quarantine at home for at least 10 days.

But hundreds of schools in the U.S. have adopted test-to-stay policies as an alternative approach, and several states have funded statewide test-to-stay policies to ensure that students do not spend long periods of time out of the classroom, according to the Associated Press.

The CDC worked with some school districts to evaluate these programs and released two studies on Friday that showed test-to-stay is succeeding.

One study of K-12 schools in Los Angeles County examined a test-to-stay strategy adopted on July 12 that permitted unvaccinated students who were exposed to COVID-19 to stay in school if they regularly tested negative, were asymptomatic, and wore a mask while in school. The study found that keeping kids in school under these conditions did not increase transmission risk in public schools and "might greatly reduce loss of in-person school days."

A second study of schools in Lake County, Illinois, had similar results for a test-to-stay policy that was adopted in August. Close contacts of infected persons were allowed to stay in school provided both the infected person and the close contact were masked when an exposure may have happened, the close contact was asymptomatic, and the close contact was tested one, three, five, and seven days after exposure to the infected person.

In that study, COVID-19 infections developed in only 16 out of more than 1,000 close contacts who were tracked, a transmission rate of about 1.5%.

"Test-to-Stay is another valuable tool in a layered prevention strategy that includes promoting vaccination of eligible students and staff, requiring everyone age 2 and older wear a mask inside schools and facilities, keeping at least 3 feet of distance between students, screening testing, ventilation, handwashing, and staying home when sick," CDC officials said.

"Additionally, CDC recommends everyone ages 5 years and older get a COVID-19 vaccine to help protect against COVID-19. Adolescents ages 16 years and older can get a booster shot at least six months after a primary series. Widespread vaccination for COVID-19 is a critical tool to best protect everyone from COVID-19 and COVID-19 related complications," the agency added.

The CDC recommends that students who participate in test-to-stay should "consistently and correctly wear masks while in school and should stay home and isolate if they develop symptoms or test positive for SARS-CoV-2."

Schools that wish to adopt test-to-stay policies must have "robust contact tracing" programs and access to testing resources, the CDC said.

LA County sheriff refuses to use COVID-19 test provider over alleged ties to China



Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Monday informed the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that his office will no longer use the county's coronavirus test provider, alleging that the company may share data from COVID-19 testing patients with the Chinese government.

In a letter reported by Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, Villanueva says he was contacted by the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator, who shared "very concerning information" regarding Fulgent Genetics Corporation, the Temple City-based company contracted by L.A. County to provide coronavirus tests.

NEW: The L.A. County Sheriff has notified L.A. County that LASD will not work w/ a genetics firm the County hired for mandatory COVID-19 testing/registration of County employees after he received a recent briefing from the FBI warning him about the firm\u2019s links to China. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/WHtFcEZlPI
— Bill Melugin (@Bill Melugin) 1638239292

Villanueva told the board of supervisors that he attended a Nov. 26, 2021, briefing at the FBI Los Angeles Field Office, along with the county's top attorney and chief executive, with all supervisors and the head of the Department of Public Health invited.

"The FBI stated the purpose of the meeting was to inform County leaders of the serious risks associated with allowing Fulgent to conduct COVID-19 testing of County employees," Villanueva said.

The sheriff said he was "shocked to learn" that Fulgent has alleged ties to several Chinese technology and genomics companies that are "linked to the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) State Council and are under the control of the PRC."

He further alleged that Fulgent uses genetic information obtained from COVID-19 testing patients in studies, and raised concerns that data potentially stored by Fulgent outside the U.S. could be accessed by the Chinese government.

“I am deeply concerned as to the vetting process which either failed to discover this or discovered it but chose to ignore it. A simple Internet search would have covered all the above facts,” Villanueva wrote.

He stated that the FBI "felt strongly enough regarding Fulgent being used to test County personnel that they held an emergency briefing to disclose their concerns."

"The Department will remove itself from working with Fulgent," Villanueva said.

L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl told the Los Angeles Times that she was invited to the FBI briefing but could not attend because she was out of town for Thanksgiving.

“From what I heard about the briefing, there was no evidence at all, zero, that Fulgent had breached anything or had any relationship with the Chinese government that was harmful to the information that might be present in the samples that they’re testing,” she said.

On Aug. 4, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors mandated that all County employees provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 by Oct. 1 or face termination. Melugin reported that the county awarded a no-bid contract to Fulgent to provide testing and registration services, and that all county employees, more than 100,000 people, were required to register their vaccination status with Fulgent.

Melugin said that some employees reached out to him and were "furious" with a disclaimer from Fulgent Genetics explaining that the company may "store, process and transmit personal information in locations around the world," including in places with "less protective" data protection laws.

"If you do not want your information transferred to or processed or maintained outside of the country or jurisdiction where you are located, you should not use our Services," the Fulgent disclaimer reads, according to a screenshot shared by Melugin.

On August 4th, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors issued an executive order mandating all County employees provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19, or face potential termination. L.A. County awarded a no-bid contract to Fulgent to provide testing/registration services.
— Bill Melugin (@Bill Melugin) 1638239665

In a statement released Monday, the county said the contract with Fulgent prohibits the company from disclosing data collected without the county's "express written permission" and requires the company to "store and process County data/information only within the continental United States."

The county pointed out that federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security also contract with Fulgent, which is certified by the Food and Drug Administration, accredited by the College of American Pathologists, and licensed by the California Department of Public Health.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to safeguarding our employees’ testing data, the County continually assesses any credible concerns that may emerge, in consultation with our partners in the federal government, to ensure that the terms of our testing contract are stringently followed," the county said. "If a credible threat is confirmed, or if the federal government takes any steps to rescind its certification, we will take immediate action to ensure no employee data is misused.”

The FBI declined to comment on the briefing to both Melugin and the Los Angeles Times.

Villanueva said the Sheriff's Department will use its own registration system and work with coronavirus testing companies that are unaffiliated with Fulgent to comply with the county's mandates. He asked that the board of supervisors "take steps to immediately assess and mitigate any further risk before any personnel are disciplined under the mandate for refusing to subject their information to the Fulgent system."

County Supervisor Janice Hahn said Monday that the sheriff's office should prioritize enforcing the county's employee vaccination mandate.

“I wish the sheriff would get his deputies vaccinated instead of worrying about how the unvaccinated get tested,” she said in a statement.

Villanueva, a Democrat, has been a longtime critic of the county's vaccine mandate. He said in October he would not enforce the mandate, warning that it could lead to a "mass exodus" of county employees.

Los Angeles Unified School District will require mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing for all students, employees despite vaccination status



The Los Angeles Unified School District announced Thursday that it will require all students and employees returning for in-person learning to be tested for COVID-19 on a weekly basis.

The district is the second-largest school district in the country.

What are the details?

On Thursday, KTLA-TV reported that all returning students and employees will be subjected to ongoing, weekly COVID-19 testing whether or not they have been vaccinated.

In a statement, Interim Superintendent Megan K. Kelly said, "This is in accordance with the most recent guidance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health."

Baseline testing for students returning to campus begins Monday, she added, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The district previously stated that fully vaccinated students and employees would not be required to test for the coronavirus, the outlet reported, but rescinded the plan earlier this month.

"In addition to regular testing, safety measures will include: masking for all students, staff, and visitors; maximizing physical distancing as much as possible; continuing comprehensive sanitizing efforts, including frequent hand-washing; upgraded air filtration systems; and collaborating with health partners and agencies to support free COVID-19 vaccination," the statement added.

The district's statement continued, "Ultimately, the greatest protection against COVID and the Delta variant is vaccination. We encourage everyone who is eligible to be vaccinated."

The district's website instructed students and employees on how to schedule their weekly, ongoing COVID-19 tests.

The site told users:

Los Angeles Unified is providing COVID testing for all students and staff. All students and employees, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, returning for in-person instruction must participate in baseline and ongoing weekly COVID testing. This is in accordance with the most recent guidance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Baseline testing begins on Monday, August 2.In addition to these sites, mobile COVID-19 testing teams will be visiting your local school each week of baseline testing. Contact your school's principal for information about dates.Tests are free, quick, easy, and your personal information will remain confidential!

Of the testing process, the site added:

Once you make an appointment, you will receive a confirmation email with appointment details. Testing will take place at an LA Unified site. Your confidential test result will be emailed to you following the test. All the information will be kept in a separate, secure database and only shared with the appropriate scientists, administrators and health authorities.

Following the announcement, teachers union President Cecily Myart-Cruz said, "Vaccines are like seatbelts: necessary but not invincible. Just like we need seatbelts, airbags, and speed limits, we need masks, ventilation, and testing to keep school communities safe."

What else?

Earlier this month, Deadline reported that the state of California would require masking in all school settings.

Families, the Times reports, have the option of choosing distance learning over in-person learning, but officials state that the "best learning takes place in a classroom."

Families have until Friday to opt into online distance learning. Those who do not will automatically be assigned to learn in person.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's fall semester begins Aug. 16 with in-person instruction.

Horowitz: CDC issues guidance for evaluating post-vaccination COVID tests at a lower standard



We've watched throughout the country as entire families are forced into quarantine because one classmate of a child tests positive for the virus without exhibiting any symptoms. Lives destroyed without any due process or evidentiary standards that they are even infected.

Last August, the New York Times reported that so many PCR tests were netting false positives because they used more than 30 cycle thresholds (CTs) of amplification, often as many as 40-45 before finding a positive culture. To this day, the CDC has refused to change its guidance on the use of high CTs in determining positive results, needlessly forcing so many people, particularly asymptomatic children, into quarantine for no reason. Well, now the agency has finally changed its guidance — but only when it suits cronies.

In a notice on its "COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough case investigation," the CDC announced its plan to study the prevalence of "breakthrough cases," meaning those who contract the virus even after having been vaccinated. Yesterday, former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson noticed this little gem in the guidance for determining those infected post-vaccination: "Clinical specimens for sequencing should have an RT-PCR Ct value ≤28."

Alas, the CDC has suddenly discovered the power of cycle thresholds on PCR testing in determining whether the positive results are real or meaningful. But here's the problem: Where is this guidance when it comes to non-vaccinated people? As Berenson points out, a standard of 28 CTs applied to the general testing regime would preclude as many as 90% of cases from being recorded, especially when the virus is in low circulation.

Wow. WOW. @cdcgov only wants to examine post-vaccine infections with a PCR threshold of 28 or under.That standard… https://t.co/PUGSeS99pm

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) 1619716838.0

Almost eight months ago, the New York Times reported that cultures detected in 27 to 34 CTs seldom reveal any live virus, and specimens detected above 34 CTs never show any live virus. Most research shows that any virus that is detected only through a CT level above 25, and certainly above 30, is very likely to be a false or meaningless positive. This is why a Portuguese judge recently ruled that any positive test that used more than 25 cycle thresholds is not reliable and cannot be used to force quarantine.

Each cycle threshold doubles the level of amplification of the previous CT. Thus, a CT of 40 is 1,024 times the amplification of a CT level of 30 (210 =1,024) and 32,768 times that of a CT of 25 (215=32,768). Clearly, not all positive results are equal, and knowing the CT level of your positive result is of utmost importance.

Thus, the CDC is correct in not wanting false positives to work against the reputation of the vaccines, but why is it OK for false positives to work against the livelihood of Americans? Why is it that only when it comes to the reputation of the vaccines do they suddenly discover the science of false positives? Based on the current CDC standard, the entire contact tracing regime, even to the extent one maniacally believes they can trace a virus that 40% of the country already contracted, should be overhauled.

Just how destructive is the problem of false positives? Biostatistician Jon Deeks posted data from Public Health England showing that as many as 62% of the positives among British schoolchildren in recent weeks were false.

The 1st 2 weeks of school testing did find MORE FALSE POSITIVES than TRUE POSITIVES - data are finally public.Pro… https://t.co/FsaYS5HkjS

— Jon Deeks 💙 (@deeksj) 1619691750.0

The problem is especially acute in a place like England, where the virus is nearly extinct, and among children, who contract the virus less often. However, in most places in the United States, the virus is also circulating at a very low level. Yet if this testing regime continues, the forced isolation without due process will continue indefinitely.

Think about this absurd evil that is being perpetrated upon our children: They are needlessly tested for a virus that doesn't affect them, with a faulty test that will scare them into getting an experimental vaccine they don't need, whose efficacy is then measured against a much less sensitive test. It's all in the science!

It's also amusing to watch the government finally discover science in order to bolster public confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccines, while refusing to recognize all the data on the efficacy of natural immunity against reinfection. A recent study of 6.3 million Israelis showed that the estimated protection for those already infected was 94.8% from reinfection and 96.4% from severe illness, as compared to effectiveness of 92.8% and 94.4%, respectively, from the vaccines. There was just one death in the entire country from someone who supposedly already had the virus, and he was over 80 years old.

The authors conclude that their research "puts into question the need to vaccinate recent (up to six month) previously-infected individuals." They do qualify their statement with the nuance of "recent" previously infected because we don't have data on the virus for long-term immunity. However, that is true of the vaccine as well. At lease for prior infection, we have studies showing that those with SARS1 infections who never even contracted SARS-CoV-2 seem to be immune 17 years later.

This research coming from Israel is very telling, because Israel is probably the most hawkish country on vaccines. Still, they are willing to publish academic literature playing up natural immunity and showing that there is no need for those with natural immunity to take a risk on experimental vaccines. Our government refuses to recognize the existence of immunity from prior infection in any shape or form.

It's truly shocking how our politicians will do everything in their power to play up the vaccines and downplay natural immunity; to ratchet up the cycle thresholds for those getting the virus without the vaccine, while ratchetting them down for those already vaccinated. They all like to say they are following the science, but in reality, they are following the money and the power.

Horowitz: Here is a lifesaving COVID-19 bill every legislature should pass



As my wife chatted with a phlebotomist administering her COVID-19 antibody test, he asked her if she planned to get the vaccine if her results came up negative. She told the middle-aged man that at her age the risk of the experimental vaccine would far outweigh the benefit. The kind man drawing her blood agreed, but noted that his doctor warned him, "it's either the vaccine or a ventilator."

When my wife related this story to me, the jarring reality of just how successful the government has been with its misinformation campaign hit me like a ton of bricks. This panicked advice embodies the great lie – the false dichotomy – that is being offered to tens of millions of Americans at the behest of government and the medical establishment.

COVID-19 is not some rare illness that can be avoided nor is it a novel untreatable virus at this point. At least 45% of Los Angeles has already contracted it, according to serology tests, a number that is likely even higher, according to Johns Hopkins professor Marty Makary. Yet, if you are someone who is at risk for serious illness, the government still has nothing to offer you but a mask and a stay-at-home order if you test positive. Then, all they have waiting for you in the hospital is worthless remdesivir and a ventilator 7-10 days later when it is often too late.

But now that we see this virus and its predictable effects coming a mile away, why is there no treatment protocol from government and the medical establishment? Worse, doctors are being threatened and canceled for offering lifesaving early therapeutic treatment with cheap and safe drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine mixed with other repurposed drug cocktails and natural supplements. It's time to change that.

Earlier this month, Colorado state Rep. Stephanie Luck introduced House Bill 21-1202 titled, "Off-label Use of Approved Drugs To Treat COVID-19." At its core, the bill addresses the lack of patient options both for prophylaxis and for at-home early-stage therapeutic treatment of Covid-19. We already know that doctors are hesitant to prescribe, and pharmacists are hesitant to dispense, FDA-approved drugs (for off-label use) to treat Covid-19. Medical professionals continue to be intimidated by state administrative agencies and boards that regulate and control their licenses.

The ensuing result is that people are given this false promise of somehow avoiding the virus simply by wearing a cheap cloth (worked out real well for Los Angeles!) and the false choice between getting the vaccine or winding up in the hospital if they get a serious case of the virus. It is simply insane to wait until people get to the hospital to treat a very predictable and treatable case of respiratory distress, inflammatory reaction, or thrombosis that then becomes untreatable in its late stages.

The reality is that endless studies have shown that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine alone are lifesavers when taken early on (or possibly even later in the case of ivermectin) because they reverse the effects of the known dangerous biological reactions caused by the virus. Shouldn't patients have the right to try? If COVID-19 is really serious enough to destroy our civilization, why not actually treat it with low cost, low risk, and no destruction of our social interaction and economy?

This particular bill introduced in Colorado specifies that any health care provider authorized to prescribe medication may prescribe and dispense, and a pharmacist may dispense, therapeutic drugs already approved by the FDA for off-label use, including hydroxychloroquine sulfate and ivermectin, to provide prophylaxis or outpatient (at-home) and inpatient (hospital) treatment to an individual with COVID-19. The bill also ensures that such a prescription is not deemed unprofessional conduct or otherwise grounds for discipline.

The bill is scheduled for a hearing on March 31 in the House Health and Insurance Committee. Unfortunately, Democrats control the Colorado Legislature, so the prospects of this bill are not so promising, but what about in the 31 states where the GOP controls the legislature?

Consider the fact that the vaccine, which is being touted as the greatest thing since the invention of sliced bread is itself an experimental mRNA gene therapy that is only being authorized under experimental Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA. Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, on the other hand, have been dispensed billions of times since the 1970s for ailments such as parasitic infections, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, and have been proven to be among the safest drugs.

Yet, the government-media complex treats the vaccine as if it's a proven commodity and these drugs as if they are experimental. The censorship is so great that all my articles on ivermectin, which is now batting "one thousand" in terms of studies showing its efficacy, have been pulled from Facebook. Why are the people who claim to be the most concerned about COVID-19 engaging in a war against the most effective early therapeutics that not only save almost everyone who gets the virus but keep them out of the hospitals for pennies on the dollar?

Well, I think we know the answer. With a near-cure to the virus, there is no longer a pretext for shutting down people's lives, masking them, and lining the pockets of Big Pharma for either expensive or ineffective experimental treatments or gene therapy.

So many people have died because doctors have been too scared to prescribe the drugs. As Dr. Richard Urso testified before the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee, he was issued a cease-and-desist letter by his local medical board for successfully treating patients with a cocktail of drugs that included hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and budesonide. The refusal of these doctors to treat patients at home has led to needless hospitalization and irreversible cytokine storm and thrombosis that, for many, turned fatal.

Republican state legislatures need to take up this mantel in legislation or (if it's too late in the session to introduce a bill) in their respective budget bills. States are all spending billions of dollars chasing their tails on testing, tracing, and hospitalizations, when simply getting out of the way of early treatments could solve the entire problem. As Dr. Peter McCullough, Texas-based cardiologist who has saved many COVID-19 patients, recently said on my show, had government promoted prophylaxis and early treatment, we could have prevented 85% of the COVID-19 casualties.

So the next time anyone tells you we need to destroy civilization and individual liberty for COVID-19 but are also standing in the way of the one thing that will effectively staunch the virus without collateral damage, just know they don't give a darn about the virus. They want to control your life. Lining the pockets of their political donors in big Pharma is just the icing on the cake.

US says China forcibly tested American diplomats with anal swabs for COVID-19 detection



The U.S. State Department says that China forced American diplomats to take invasive anal swab tests to detect COVID-19 infection, according to various reports Thursday.

China has reportedly been using anal swabbing tests to determine the coronavirus status.

What are the details?

According to the Insider, a state department representative said that the United States complained to China after it learned that staffers were subjected to the anal swab.

"The State Department never agreed to this kind of testing and protested directly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs when we learned that some staff were subject to it," the representative said.

The representative added that China also said the tests were given to American diplomats "in error" and that the diplomats were supposed to be exempt from the test.

During a Thursday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, "I have checked with my colleagues. As far as I know, China has never required U.S. diplomatic staff in the country to take anal swab tests."

According to a related report from Vice, it was not immediately clear how many diplomatic employees or members of their families were made to take the tests.

Insider reported that the test involves inserting a cotton-tipped swab one to two inches into the rectum and rotating it.

In a statement, the State Department said that it is committed to preserving the "dignity" of American diplomats.

What else?

According to a Thursday report from the BBC, Li Tongzeng — a respiratory and infectious diseases expert in Beijing — said that anal swabbing can "avoid missing infections as virus traces are detectable for a longer time than the more common COVID tests used in the mouth and nose.

At the time, Li insisted that the tests were only necessary for certain populations, such as those under quarantine orders.

Horowitz: Florida leads nation in pushing accuracy and transparency of COVID-19 testing



Which state will provide Americans as much transparency and due process as Portugal does before forcibly locking them down? It appears that Florida is leading the way in bringing sunlight to the process of PCR testing, which is being used as the formative tool inducing forced quarantines.

It's been nearly three months since the New York Times discovered that a large percentage of the positive tests being reported in this country are only at trace levels and are not infectious. The paper reported that most labs were using 35-40 RNA amplifications, known as "cycle thresholds" (CTs), in order to detect traces of the virus. Most research shows that any virus that is captured only through a CT level above 25, and certainly above 30, is very likely to be a false or meaningless positive. This is why a Portuguese judge recently ruled that any positive test that used more than 25 cycle thresholds is not reliable and cannot be used to force quarantine.

Each cycle threshold doubles the level of amplification of the previous CT. Thus, a CT of 40 is 1,024 times the amplification of a CT level of 30 (210 =1,024) and 32,768 times that of a CT of 25 (215=32,768). Clearly, not all positive results are equal, and knowing the CT level of your positive result is of utmost importance. A friend of mine had her daughter forcibly removed from school for two weeks because my friend tested positive with no symptoms when she gave birth in the hospital. Shouldn't she know if her case is really at a level that can be cultured as a live infection or not? If not, not only was her daughter's life gratuitously disrupted, but all her friends were needlessly locked down too.

Thanks to the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Florida appears to be the first state that will begin quantifying CT levels and possibly adjusting policy based on the results. On Dec. 4, Florida became the first state to mandate that testing labs report the cycle thresholds of each COVID test.

"All positive, negative and indeterminate COVID-19 laboratory results must be reported to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately," ordered the Florida Department of Health in a new memorandum to testing centers first posted online by the Alachua Chronicle. "This includes all COVID-19 test types – polymerase chain reaction (PCR), other RNA, antigen and antibody results. Cycle threshold (CT) values and their reference ranges, as applicable, must be reported by laboratories to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately."

It's unclear at this point whether the DeSantis administration plans to change quarantine policies based on the disclosure of CT values, but the first step toward readjusting those policies is to gather such information. Knowing what percentage of positive cases are detected only at levels that are likely dead viral RNA is a vital tool in tracking the epidemiological trends of the virus.

The enormity of consequence from such a decision cannot be overstated. A recent analysis of 29 existing studies conducted by Oxford University researchers found that "the evidence is increasingly pointing to the probability of culturing live virus being related to the amount of viral RNA in the specimen and, therefore, inversely related to the cycle threshold." They observed two published studies that showed "the odds of live virus culture reduced by approximately 33% for every one unit increase in Ct."

This is why they concluded that given that "complete live viruses are necessary for transmission, not the fragments identified by PCR," it's advisable that accurate CT levels coupled with actual symptoms in the patient "should be used to define the reliability of PCR for assessing infectious potential." On the other hand, they concluded that positive results from those "with high cycle threshold are unlikely to have infectious potential."

Consider all the children who often don't have any symptoms but test positive and are taken out of school. Now, consider all those who are supposedly exposed to that asymptomatic child who are taken out of school for two weeks. Shouldn't we try to determine whether those children actually have infectious potential, especially when we have found very little spread from children in school?

The consequences of unscientific quarantine of children are devastating. According to the Washington Post, failure rates in math and English among low-income household children in Montgomery County, Maryland, rose sixfold this year. In St. Paul, Minnesota, nearly 40% of high school students have received failing grades so far this year. Yet, Maryland Governor "Lockdown" Larry Hogan and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz continue to ignore the science about CT levels in testing and the lack of spread among children.

If every state were to track cycle thresholds, we would actually be able to better target the quarantine and contact tracing (to the extent it's even constitutional) to those who actually have live infectious potential. We'd also be able to determine once and for all if there is meaningful spread among asymptomatic individuals.

Why would we continue to indiscriminately lock down an entire society and chase our tail tracing a virus with millions of positive cases that aren't really infectious? That strategy hasn't worked in containing the virus and has only worked to destroy our lives. Then again, this was never about following the science. This was always about control. And the more the public is in the dark about what is and is not a danger for spreading the virus, the more the politicians can categorically shut us down.