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If you've been diagnosed "probable" or "presumed" 2009 H1N1 or "swine flu" in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn't have H1N1 flu.In fact, you probably didn't have flu at all. That's according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there's an epidemic?

A Ct value does not indicate how much virus is present, but only whether or not viral genetic material was detected at a defined threshold. RT-PCR tests can be either qualitative or quantitative, and this affects how a Ct value is interpreted. As of October 23, 2020, all diagnostic RT-PCR tests that had received a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for SARS-CoV-2 testing were qualitative tests.In a qualitative RT-PCR test, known amounts of virus are used during the development of the test to determine what Ct values are associated with positive and negative specimens....

The "cycle threshold" is the number of amplification cycles a PCR test goes through before it determines the presence of a virus. The lower the cycle, the higher the viral load from the original sample; a higher cycle, on the other hand, means that the machine had to work longer and harder to detect a scant amount of virus in the original sample. Higher-cycle "positive" tests potentially indicate that a patient is non-infectious and at little health risk from the virus; those results may also indicate that a patient need not subject himself to strict quarantine measures, given the potential...

The Florida Department of Health is requiring that all labs in the state report the critical “cycle threshold” level of every COVID-19 test they perform.In a press release this week, the department said that, regarding COVID-19 tests, “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.”“Cycle thresholds” are the level at which widely used polymerase chain reaction test can detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the amount of viral load in the sample; the lower...

Purpose of this notice: clarify information previously provided by WHO. This notice supersedes WHO Information Notice for In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Device (IVD) Users 2020/05 version 1, issued 14 December 2020.Description of the problem: WHO requests users to follow the instructions for use (IFU) when interpreting results for specimens tested using PCR methodology. WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as...

The pandemic has brought the commercial real estate market in San Francisco to a new low, with work-from-home policies and office closures slowing Silicon Valley-driven business expansion to numbers not seen in at least three decades. New office-leasing activity in 2020 dropped a staggering 71% compared with the year before, according to the real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Tenant demand also halved during the pandemic, from 6.6m sq ft to 3.3m sq ft.

One unfortunate standout, however, was in the New York Fed’s district, which covers New York City, upstate New York, and northern New Jersey. In this region, conditions in the real estate market are tough all around, with the struggles of New York City perhaps the clearest sign of how deeply cities continue to struggle during this recovery. “The residential rental market has continued to weaken, led by New York City,” the Fed’s report said. “Partly reflecting increased landlord concessions, effective rents in Manhattan and Queens are reported to be down more than 20 percent from a year earlier and down...

A coalition in California is proposing legislation to boost taxes corporations to raise $2.4 billion for homeless programs.

Dr. Grant Colfax said while the city saw a 70% increase in COVID-19 cases since Thanksgiving, the December holiday surge is 28%. He also offered positive information regarding ICU beds in San Francisco — Colfax said the county still has the ICU capacity to treat patients, but surrounding counties in the Bay Area continue to have shrinking capacity. As a whole region, the Bay Area at last update has 0.7% ICU availability.

As a deadly surge of COVID-19 began hammering California late last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed new restrictions on personal and economic activities and repeatedly promised that massive vaccinations would soon stop its spread. “It’s a sprint, not a marathon,” he would say in urging Californians to wear masks, avoid large gatherings and otherwise slow infection rates while the state implemented an ambitious vaccination program. Meanwhile, the vaccination program that Newsom promised is seemingly bogged down. Newsom said Monday that 783,436 doses of vaccine had been administered, 31.6% of the 2.5 million it had received from suppliers.

Allies to Gov. Gavin Newsom are working hard to link the ongoing recall efforts to last week's riots at the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to save a governor facing public fury over his handling of the pandemic. Throughout the recall process, Newsom allies have worked to tie the recall to President Donald Trump — a politically toxic figure in California — and during a Tuesday press conference, California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks and other state Democrats went as far to call the recall a "California coup." Newly elected San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria also spoke at the press...

A tech firm, hotels, restaurants, and a big retailer are among the latest companies to detail their layoff plans to state officials, a grim reminder that economic woes during the coronavirus recession have yet to run their course.Carmel Valley Ranch, a hotel and resort, 151 jobs in Carmel.Analog Devices, a semiconductor company, will eliminate 255 jobs in Milpitas.Lucky Chances Casino laid off 489 workers in Colma.California Grand Casino disclosed a decision to lay off 181 workers in the East Bay community of Pacheco.Ventana Big Sur, a famed hotel and resort, 115 jobs in Big Sur.Il Fornaio America, a Corte Madera-based...

While COVID-19 numbers continue to skyrocket, one South Bay statistic pertaining to another virus is surprising experts in the best possible way. So far this season, there has been only one reported case of the flu in Santa Clara County. Experts credit COVID-19 precautions for the drop. The county's official flu numbers — logged after emergency room or doctor visits in which lab results come back positive — fluctuate every year, from the mid 40s to the mid 70s and sometimes as high as the mid 200s. But to date, the only flu case this season was recorded in October....

Leo Kelly was one of the first men to breach the Capitol building and go inside with dozens of others. In this exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews correspondent Jim Hale, Leo talks about his conflicted feelings about what he did, and why he felt it was necessary.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is now predicting that America won’t return to “a strong semblance of normality” until the Fall, and even that will take Herculean efforts to increase the speed of vaccine distribution. “If we then diligently vaccinate people in April, May, June, July, that we will gradually and noticeably get a degree of protection approaching herd immunity, which I believe — first of all, no one really knows what absolute herd immunity is for coronavirus. We know what it is for measles because we have decades of experience with measles. So I would say it’s somewhere between 70% and...

2020 was one of the worst years in modern American history for small businesses. And now, thanks to a wave of minimum wage legislation that kicked in on January 1, things are about to get even worse.Make no mistake: small business owners are already seriously hurting. To add insult to injury, thousands of small businesses were vandalized and looted during the summer unrest after the death of George Floyd. (No, insurance doesn’t eliminate the harm).At least 100,000 small businesses that were forced to close in 2020 will not reopen, according to Yelp. In a recent survey, almost 60 percent of...

“Peaceful protest is an important mechanism of our democracy but what we are witnessing in our nation’s Capitol building is reprehensible and an outright assault to our democracy and Democratic institutions,” Newsom said.

To the dismay of Sacramento County’s health officer, a group pushing back on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 restrictions is hosting a conference in Rancho Murieta this weekend, bringing in sheriffs, elected officials and business lobbyists to make the case that Newsom’s stay-at-home orders have harmed the California economy. Calling itself Re-Open Cal Now, the group plans multiple panel discussions at Murieta Equestrian Center, a horse-show venue, as well as a rally at the Capitol. “We’re trying to show we can open up and be safe.” The conference was immediately criticized by Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye. Kasirye...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday proposed providing $600 stimulus checks for low-income residents on top of the boost provided by the federal coronavirus relief package. Newsom said in a statement that roughly 4 million Californians could receive the extra check, which, combined with the $600 they'd get from the federal stimulus package, would end up netting them $1,200 in relief. In the same announcement, the governor also proposed extending California's eviction moratorium, which is set to expire on Jan. 31.

With roughly two months to its signature deadline, the Recall Gov. Gavin Newsom petition reached 60 percent of its required signatures by New Year’s Eve, surpassing 911,000 verified signatures. To be added to a ballot, 1,495,709 signatures are needed. The number of signatures already gathered is more than what it took to qualify the Gray Davis Recall A spokesman for the governor said the recall is a misuse of time that could be spent “reopening schools and businesses.” He told Fox 5 San Diego that a recall would “waste $100 million on a special election redo, mere months before a...