Emails, Secret Report Show Politics Of Science Guiding Pritzker

patch.com ^ | 10/28/2020 | Mark Konkol

[ChicagoConservative27]

CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker keeps telling Illinoisans that his coronavirus mitigation efforts are guided by science.

"Science twice removed" might be closer to the truth, public records show.

After combing though hundreds of pages of emails and a confidential coronavirus report obtained through the spoils of another man's Freedom of Information request, the big takeaway is that scientists advising Pritzker say coronavirus test positivity rates that guide his pandemic response are unreliable.

[ChicagoConservative27]

I was talking to my friend yesterday who is a manager at a state reps office here in IL. Her boss was pissed the restaurants are being shut down and had her call the health Dept for the numbers justifying the shut down.

She called a few days ago and NOTHING. They refuse to give her the info.

[ClearCase_guy]

It’s the arbitrariness that really gets to me.

Rules come; rules go.
Places are open; places are closed.
There’s never any real reason. The government just picks winners and losers. Because they can. They don’t need reasons.

[bigbob]

Bravo to IHSA who is defying Pricksters’ orders and will start HS basketball on Nov. 16.

Sad as it is for many small business owners, Gov. Lardass is damaging the democrap party in a state that has suffered greatly under one-party rule.

[jeffc]

I mentioned before, if Trump got the China virus and is now immune and non-contagious, what about all those people who tested positive months ago? Are they not contagious anymore, or is Trump Superman (OK, he is, but still...)?

With all these people testing positive and not getting sick or only mildly sick, isn't that a good thing? How long are these people supposed to stay contagious? I don't see anything anywhere about people who tested positive many months ago. What's their outcome?

[AndyJackson]

Badly written article the author of which doesn't understand the fundamental issue and just get to the heart of the problem.

The fundamental technical issue is that the rapid growth of testing relies on seriological tests that have very high false positivity rates. So, You test 1 million people, none of whom have COVID 19 and you discover that some 20,000 or 30,000 are positive [that's only a 2-3% false positive rate] and you predict and epidemic despite there being no actual underlying cases.

That in a nutshell is what is the underlying problem and has been the underlying problem since before COVID 19 hit our shores.

[AndyJackson]

With all these people testing positive and not getting sick

Testing positive and getting the disease are too different things in a poor test.

[allendale]

Pritzker and the other Democratic governors have blood on their hands because they banned the prescription of hydroxychloroquine by practicing physicians when their patients first presented with the earliest symptoms of COVID-19 infection. Hydroxychloroquine is most effective if used before a patient develops pneumonitis. These Democratic governors had no valid reason to interfere with competent physicians using their judgement and treating their patients. The Democratic gocernors have blood on their hands and must be held accountable.

[Blurb2350]

Yep, but that one-party rule will continue for the foreseeable future. The middle-class is fleeing Illinois in droves, leaving behind the very well-off and the indigent, irresponsible lower class, both of whom are wedded to the left -- for different reasons, of course. I wonder if it would qualify as a folie à deux?

[bert]

Apparently, testing positive and having been or currently are sick are not the same either. It is becoming apparent that some can actually have contracted the virus with few or small noticeable symptoms that show up on a test.

It seems that America is self immunizing with the actual virus prior to the wide usage of a vaccine

[BobinIL]

If the so called (fair tax) passes I am going to accelerate my plans for departure from this state.

[bigbob]

Agreed, but all that was clear to me after reading the article. Technical details of serological testing are less relevant to the average citizen than the fact that politics and a political agenda is the real basis for restrictions, as is obvious from the layers of filtering being done by Prickster’s staff.

In short, they impose whatever punitive restrictions they wish and use junk “science” to justify it while withholding key and critical information.

[jeffc]

"Testing positive and getting the disease are too different things in a poor test."

So true, and yet the media like to play up those numbers. Why can't we counter with real science about how people test positive, maybe get the sniffles, and recover and are then immune and non-contagious?

The more this happens, the better off we all are. The media and their Dem masters don't want that to happen. They wish to keep everyone in fear.

I think I'm missing something, as I don't see or hear anyone at all discussing this. What is it?

[AndyJackson]

This isn't about people who actually get the disease. The underlying issues is folks who test positive falsely who were never ever exposed. The underlying issue is that common low cost rapid turn around tests have low "specificity" eg. 95% vs 99.8%. That means that 5% of the people who are tested test positive with no exposure of any kind anywhere. So you could find that you have 50,000 people in your city with COVID when there are no actual cases of COVID, asymptomatic or otherwise in your community.

False negatives are also a problem for containment and quarantine. If 100 people have Ebola and you lock down 99 and let one loose, you have no effective containtment. Even 98% specificity is almost useless for epidemiology [as opposed to individual treatment] if only 1% of your population has ever been exposed.

[Don Corleone]

With all these people testing positive and not getting sick or only mildly sick, isn't that a good thing?

Its a friggin' disease like any other, Flu,Hn1,Common cold,plague, syphilis. It will always be out there to some extent. Sad to see people have to die from it but that is mostly because the Communist left wants to use them for their own political purpose. Its not the infection rate, increased awareness of it because of better and more testing. Its the death rate which is rapidly decreasing that should be measured. jmho

[Wuli]

Too much. The authors should condense the mountain of points to the most salient matters.