Western Standard - May 14, 2021


Manitoba Chief Microbiologist Says Test ＂Unreliable＂

Mentioned
Bullard J. Bachachara Thomas Warren
UCP MLA Todd Loewen calls for Kenney's resignation. Nadine Wellwood reviews the letter The Pipeline, May 14, 2021

Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

109.82

Word count

628

Sentence count

38


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In a Court of Queens Bench hearing in preparation for trial, Dr. Jared Bullard, Chief Microbiologist and Laboratory Specialist and Witness for the Manitoba Government, stated that PCR test results do not verify infectiousness and were never intended to be used to diagnose respiratory illnesses.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 56% of reported cases of COVID are likely not infectious.
00:00:15.920 Nadine Wellwood, correspondent for the Western Standard.
00:00:32.420 Manitoba government's expert witness admits PCR test results do not verify infectiousness.
00:00:40.740 In a Court of Queens bench hearing in preparation for trial, the Justice Center for Constitutional
00:00:45.900 Freedoms versus the government of Manitoba, Dr. Jared Bullard, Chief Microbiologist and
00:00:53.500 Laboratory Specialist and witness for the Manitoba government stated, PCR test results
00:01:01.580 do not verify infectiousness and were never intended to be used to diagnose respiratory
00:01:09.300 illnesses.
00:01:10.180 Dr. Bullard testified that the most accurate way to determine whether someone is actually
00:01:16.720 infectious with COVID is to attempt to grow a cell culture in the lab from a patient sample.
00:01:24.040 If the cell culture will not grow the virus in the lab, a patient is most likely not infectious.
00:01:31.900 A study conducted by Dr. Bullard and his colleagues found that only 44% of positive PCR test result
00:01:41.500 cases would actually grow in the lab.
00:01:45.380 Another way you could state this, 56% of reported cases of COVID are likely not infectious.
00:01:54.720 If Dr. Bullard's findings are correct, this calls into questions the practice used not
00:01:59.360 only in Manitoba, but every province in Canada, the use of the PCR test and classifying positive
00:02:07.100 test results as cases.
00:02:10.660 Positive PCR test results are identified currently as a case and have been used to imply infectivity,
00:02:17.940 which according to Dr. Bullard's own admission is incorrect and inaccurate.
00:02:24.440 It is worthy of mention here that some Canadian news agencies have actually quoted Dr. Bullard
00:02:30.680 as having testified that a positive PCR test indicates infectivity 99.9% of the time.
00:02:40.260 Again, this is incorrect.
00:02:43.200 Dr. Bullard actually testified that a PCR test will detect any viral NRA that is present in
00:02:52.500 a sample 99.9% of the time.
00:02:57.140 However, determining whether or not a sample is actually infectious, meaning containing the
00:03:04.460 viable virus and capable of replicating, needs to be confirmed by lab culture.
00:03:10.240 As noted, only 44% of all positive samples using a CT cycle threshold of 18 returned a viable
00:03:22.060 lab culture and samples tested at a CT of over 25, according to Dr. Bullard's report, produced
00:03:29.320 no viable lab cultures.
00:03:34.180 He went on to say that while a person with COVID is infectious for a one to two week period,
00:03:40.120 non-viable, harmless, SARS-CoV-2 fragments can be detected by a PCR test for up to 100 days
00:03:48.940 after exposure and that PCR tests do nothing more than confirm the presence of fragments
00:03:57.620 of the virus in someone's nose.
00:04:01.120 Dr. Bullard admitted that Manitoba has known for some time that a given PCR test CT value
00:04:08.780 is inversely correlated with infectiousness, meaning that testing for COVID as higher threshold
00:04:15.740 levels can result in many false positives.
00:04:20.120 Dr. Bullard has confirmed that it utilizes CTs of up to 40 and even 45 in some cases.
00:04:25.940 Meanwhile, Dr. Bullard's own research confirms that cases resulting from tests from CTs of
00:04:32.940 25 or more are not likely infectious.
00:04:37.680 The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms called upon their own medical experts, Dr. J.
00:04:43.120 Bachachara, world-famous epidemiologist and professor of medicine from Stanford University,
00:04:50.640 and Dr. Thomas Warren, infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist, both who presented
00:04:57.680 evidence that PCR test is unreliable in determining whether a person is infectious with the actual
00:05:04.240 COVID-19 disease.
00:05:06.580 The onus is now on the government of Manitoba to justify its restrictions on charter rights
00:05:11.820 and freedoms as being reasonable, necessary, and beneficial.
00:05:16.900 The outcome of this case will have tremendous implications on all levels of government in
00:05:21.960 Canada that have ignored multiple warnings and alternative viewpoints of medical experts
00:05:28.060 and others, instead choosing unilaterally to impose restrictive lockdown measures based
00:05:34.680 upon PCR test results of reported positive cases that may prove to be overstated and inaccurate.