A massive new study suggests that far fewer long-term conditions can be attributed to COVID-19 when researchers compare PCR-positive and PCR-negative patients. They are dismissing so much.
Walter M Chesnut
Sometimes something is published (more often so, these days) that is so seriously wrong that it must be addressed. No matter how ridiculous it is. A newly published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has generated considerable attention by reporting a 98.2% reduction in the number of clinical outcomes statistically attributable to COVID-19 when researchers changed how they selected their control population. This is one such seriously wrong, ridiculous example.
The study, Revised estimates of types and duration of long COVID symptoms based on claims records from 245 million US patients, analyzed an extraordinary 14.4 billion insurance claims from approximately 245 million Americans. The investigators compared patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with patients who tested negative, rather than relying on broader populations that included people who had never been tested.
The results were dramatic.
Between 120 and 359 days after testing, the number of clinical outcomes statistically attributed to COVID-19 declined from 286 to just five.
A 98.2% reduction.
There is a crucial distinction we must acknowledge here: this was not a 98.2% reduction in the number of people suffering from Long COVID. It was a reduction in the number of outcome categories that met the researchers’ criteria for attribution to COVID-19.
The “authors” of the study are IGNORING (intentionally, they can’t be this stupid) some extraordinarily important FACTS.
Some of the people who tested negative had almost certainly already developed Long COVID from an earlier infection that was never documented. Some of the people who tested negative almost certainly had been given Spike mRNA/injections.
A Negative PCR Test Is Not a Negative Infection/Exposure History
The central premise of the researchers’ approach is absurd. People who undergo COVID testing may differ from people who never seek testing. They may have underlying medical conditions, more frequent healthcare encounters, or other reasons for receiving medical attention. They also may prefer apples to oranges…
All a negative PCR test establishes is that SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in that particular sample at that particular time. It does not establish that the individual had never been infected. Or that they had never been exposed to the Spike Protein via mRNA/vaccination.
Most importantly, it certainly does not establish that an earlier infection/exposure had not initiated a chronic pathological process. Indeed, the National Academies’ 2024 definition of Long COVID explicitly recognizes that the condition can follow an infection that was never clinically recognized or laboratory-confirmed. The CDC likewise states that a positive SARS-CoV-2 test is not required for a Long COVID diagnosis.
A person can have Long COVID without ever having had a documented positive SARS-CoV-2 test.
This is not a controversial proposition. It is part of the accepted clinical understanding of the condition.
From the CDC itself:
Long COVID is not one illness. There is no approved laboratory test that can determine if your symptoms or conditions are due to Long COVID. A positive SARS-CoV-2 test is not required for a Long COVID diagnosis.
Long COVID Basics
https://www.cdc.gov/long-covid/about/index.html
What If the Macrophage Was Already Smoldering?
This is where my Smoldering Macrophage Syndrome (SMS) hypothesis becomes relevant.
I have proposed that SARS-CoV-2 infection/Spike exposure may initiate persistent, tissue-localized macrophage activation that continues long after the acute infection has resolved or Spike exposure occurred. In this model, the initiating infection/exposure and subsequent disease process are not necessarily simultaneous.
The virus may no longer be detectable in the upper respiratory tract. Circulating inflammatory markers may be unremarkable. Yet macrophages residing in tissues such as the lungs, heart, brain, gut, and microvasculature could remain abnormally activated, contributing to persistent inflammatory signaling, endothelial dysfunction, and tissue remodeling.
This remains a hypothesis requiring direct validation. But consider what it would mean for the interpretation of this enormous epidemiological study. Imagine an individual who experienced an undocumented SARS-CoV-2 infection months earlier, or Spike Protein exposure.
That individual could now enter the study’s comparison population despite already having a post-COVID/Spike Exposure condition.
If this occurred frequently enough, the supposedly uninfected comparison group could contain people with the very disease processes the researchers were attempting to attribute to COVID-19.
I am absolutely stunned that this nonsense was published. (Or am I?) And yes, it’s dangerous. It not only is inaccurate about the potential prevalence of Long COVID, it also indirectly seeks to dismiss the suffering of millions who are dealing with this horrific disease state. The “study” should be immediately retracted and with formal apologies from the publisher. We will not tolerate such manipulation of data or dismissal of the anguish of millions of individuals.