This is how you cover up a pandemic
As Omicron spreads, some experts are calling for a switch to saliva-based tests, which may detect infections days earlier than nasal swabs d
Saliva PCR tests may detect disease earlier in the course of an infection
Walgreens is now selling FDA-authorized COVID-19 saliva tests online, joining Amazon, Costco, and Walmart. Results take up to 48 hours.
So weirdly when I do a web search for "covid saliva test cost" I get a lot of articles saying "the new saliva test will cost only $5" but if I actually try to shop for it, all the results are in the price range stated in this video.
@milf-adjacent nailed it: this is how you cover up a pandemic. The Powers That Be don't want to find COVID any more. They want the narrative to be that COVID is gone. That's why they're shutting down various kinds of monitoring, reporting, etc. as fast as they can. And it's why reliable tests are so unavailable.
Not so fun fact: my mother died with COVID last month. We'll probably never know for sure if she died from COVID (its presence was discovered post mortem) but also no other explanation presents itself. No sign of infection, or any other issue except for the ones she has been successfully living with for years. If not COVID, then what?
Contrary to what all the deniers say, it is not true that every death with COVID is counted as a death from COVID to inflate the seriousness of the pandemic. It was never true. The exact opposite happened for my mother. There's no mention of COVID on her death certificate, even though it's medically the most likely cause by far, because hospitals and nursing homes and rehab centers get politically motivated pushback from the agencies that are supposed to collect such statistics. "When in doubt, throw it out" has become their mantra. The funeral director, bless her heart, did mention it on her part of the paperwork because she felt it was important, but then they're not subject to the same pressure.
And don't even get me started on this "comorbidity" bullshit. So what if COVID was merely "the last straw" for someone whose health was already poor? It would still be the proximate cause. It still caused a death that would not have occurred, as surely as if a stray bullet killed somebody who already had heart problems. People who didn't even know the word before 2020 - and still don't really know what it means - just use that as a dogwhistle for "if they're not like me their lives don't matter".
So yeah, they are twisting the narrative. I really feel for this young woman, whose anguish is so apparent in her voice as she tells her story. There is no reason for her or anyone else to be living with this kind of uncertainty, except that continuing to acknowledge COVID might hurt "the economy" - by which rich folks and politicians mean the world's largest casinostock market and not the actual economy that most people live in.
