I don't think you can misuse PCR. [It is] the results; the interpretation of it. If they can find this virus in you at all - and with PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody."
Ireland's health chiefs recommended to the government on Sunday that the country enter a second nationwide lockdown for four weeks in a surprise move that cabinet will discuss on Monday, two government sources said.See also: And check out SOTT radio's:
Ireland's National Public Health Emergency Team recommended a leap to the highest level of COVID-19 restrictions, Level 5, from current Level 2 controls in 24 of Ireland's 26 counties and stricter Level 3 measures in Dublin and Donegal.
The government has almost entirely adopted their health chiefs' advice throughout the pandemic, but one of the sources said a return to lockdown would have a serious economic and societal impact.
Prime Minister Micheal Martin and the leaders of his two coalition partners will meet the country's chief medical officer on Monday ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the recommendations.
Under level 5, people are asked to stay at home, except to exercise within 5 kilometres, with only essential retailers allowed to stay open. Unlike the first lockdown, schools and crèches would not have to close.
A spokesperson for the health department was not immediately available for comment on the advice.
Like most of Europe, Ireland has seen a steady increase in infections since the end of July after emerging slowly from one of Europe's most severe shutdowns. It reported the highest number of daily cases since late April on Saturday.
However Ireland's 14-day cumulative case total of 104.6 per 100,000 people represents only the 14th-highest infection rate out of 31 European countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease Control.
Europe's worst infection hotspot Spain has an infection rate three-times higher than Ireland and while it severely tightened confinement measures in hard-hit Madrid on Friday, restaurants, gyms and shops can still open at limited capacity.
Ireland has a relatively low hospital bed capacity compared to other European countries. The number of hospitalised COVID-19 patients has risen steadily to 132, but peaked at 881 in April during the first lockdown.
A country of nearly 5 million people will be locked down for the hospitalisation of just 132??
Ireland's main business lobby, Ibec, reacted with dismay, calling for the evidence underpinning the advice to be published.
"It is intolerable that after six months we are still receiving both vague and changing criteria to advance such serious restrictions," Ibec chief executive Danny McCoy said in a statement.
Over a half of coronavirus infections revealed this summer by one of Belgium's biggest labs were old and no longer contagious, but were still reported as new cases, local media discovered.
Belgian daily newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws examined the tests carried out by AZ Delta, one of the largest labs in the country, and made a stunning discovery. Almost half of all positive cases reported throughout June, July and August were actually people with an old infection.
The problem, it turns out, lies in the PCR Covid-19 tests. The paper reports that scientific data reveals virus particles can be detected up to 83 days after the actual infection. This led to instances where people were no longer contagious, but were still registered as positive cases. According to HLN, all of these people had to be quarantined.
Belgian experts sounded the alarm in mid-July, when coronavirus numbers spiked after a relief in June, and even insisted that the second wave had already begun for the country.
"We may have had to deal with old infections largely in the summer months," the lab's clinical biologist Frederik Van Hoecke told the paper.
"I was listening to some music at a stoplight and then all of a sudden I heard someone yell the N-word really loud," she said in an interview Wednesday. "I turned my head to look and somebody's throwing lighter fluid on me. And then they threw a lighter at me, and my neck caught on fire and I tried to put it out, but I brushed it up onto my face. I got it out and then I just blasted through the red light ... I just felt like I needed to get away. So I drove through the red light and just kept driving until I got to my brother and Middleton."...
She said she's reasonably certain it was four white men who "looked like classic Wisconsin frat boys ... Two of them were wearing all black, and then the other two were wearing jeans and a floral shirt," she said. She said the way they walked made her think they were intoxicated...
"At first I didn't even believe what had happened," she said. I grew up in Madison, on the East side, and my dad would take me to the Farmer's Market every weekend, on those same streets. It just felt so weird to have these really happy memories there, and then now to have this memory that sort of ruined all of the childhood memories. I never really knew someone could hate you just by looking at you. They didn't know me. I didn't know them. I was just driving my car and minding my own business."
Comment: Busted!
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