Opening Comments
I Sodi-West Village Tuscan Review
Quick Bites
Markets, Mortgage Rates, Baltic Freight Index
Commodity Prices, Amazon Advertising Rates
NYC Paying Homeless, Defund Police Changing
Bill Maher Defending Lin-Manuel, Republicans-Biden Test
Ranked Choice Voting, Heatwave/Drought, NFT Update
Wokeness on Animals, Juneteenth, House from Hell for $590k
Virus/Vaccine
Data
Google Funding EcoHealth Alliance for 10 Years
Delta Variant
Ct Study shows Many Positives were Not Infectious
Why Has "Ivermectin" Become a Dirty Word?
Opening Comments
Happy Father’s Day. Back in NYC for a quick trip. We golfed at Winged Foot on Thursday and believe it to be the best two course facility in the country. I feel the East and West courses are a remarkable test of golf with insane rough and green complexes. Even the holes which seem easy are not. The rough was not tall, but look at this ball which was maybe 6 ft off the fairway. I had to hit full lob wedge to get out and it traveled 60 yards. Could you imagine if it was 5” thick? I played ok, but had two blow up holes again. My bad shots are just horrific. When I walked up to the starter to check in, he said, “Wow, you have insane hair.” Mind you, I had a hat on at the time, but my locks could not be contained by a cap. I took his comments to mean he was giving me crap about my crazy hair. I took off my hat and he said, “I am not hating; I am jealous.” Note to self, I need a haircut if people are calling me out even with a hat.
I had a massive R/E section today, but took it out for next time given the note was getting too long. Lots of data on US housing market for next Wednesday, but left one crazy story about a house from hell for $590,000. Hit send early today given the Father’s Day holiday. Enjoy the day with the family.
I-Sodi Restaurant Review-I wish I Grew Up Eating Food This Good
Jack and I ended up at I Sodi. I had not been in years. It is a quaint Tuscan in the West Village. It is owned and operated by Rita Sodi, who grew up in Florence and lived on a farm. She learned how to cook from her mother. I can tell you this, I wish I grew up eating food this good and if I had, I might have been a sumo wrestler. They have a pasta maker who works 10 hours a day making it fresh daily.
I had eaten at I Sodi years ago a few times and sat at the bar. I remember the meat lasagna being one of the best I had ever tried. Now, with the pandemic, an already limited seating environment only has maybe 6 or 7 tables inside and the bar which once sat a dozen, only has 4 seats today. However, they now have a handful of tables outside. The restaurant is limited given the tiny kitchen and everything seems to be homemade.
We started with fried artichokes and a fava bean salad with cheese, mint and herbs. Both were solid and the artichokes were surprisingly light despite being fried. I believe the fava bean salad was remarkably delicious and something I would recommend. I also recall a very solid antipasto with sliced meats, cheeses and local honey.
For entrees, we had the homemade ravioli with butter sage and Parmesan and the young organic chicken under a brick. I feel strongly that pasta is something you should get at I Sodi and they give you a half dozen options from lasagna, pasta with meat sauce, ravioli, and others. The ravioli was very good and tasty, but the sauce was a bit heavy. The brick chicken was quite nice and light. We also took a side of the sautéed green onions. They were amazing, but a bit hard to eat.
There is not a big scene given the size of the place and a tiny kitchen which cannot accommodate crowds. If you want solid Tuscan fare and are in the West Village, you need to go to I Sodi. Sit at the bar and Devin will likely be at your service. The crowd was mixed, but clearly younger and the wine list had some nice and reasonably priced Italian options. This was a pre-pandemic picture, but you get the idea and this is the entire restaurant.
Food-A-
Service-A-
Wine List-B
Ambiance-B
For Lease-NYC Retail Update
I want to start on a positive note about NYC and its residents. I have been in and out of NYC a few times this summer and activity has really picked up a great deal. This NY Post article is entitled, “The Death of the NYC Restaurant Scene was Greatly Exaggerated.” Restaurants are packed. A reader suggested Jack and I try Dante-West Village. We drove by at 6pm on Thursday and they told us the wait was 2.5 hours. New Yorkers are resilient people who have been through a lot over the years and clearly, they are coming back.
However, Jack and I drove up Madison Avenue from 61st to 90th Street and there were dozens of vacancies. Some blocks had 5 or 6 for lease signs. Here is a nice women’s dress shop on Madison between 66-67th Streets with a homeless person sleeping in front of it. Dresses range from $1,000-$3,000 and I cannot imagine the shoppers are drawn to walk in with this in the front.
I spoke with a few R/E brokers who specializes in retail. The information going forward was largely from them.
Activity in past few months has been fantastic. Midtown and Times Square are lagging with limited bodies in offices and reduced tourism, especially international. The leasing market has stopped plummeting and has bottomed, while activity has picked up and rents are stabilizing. The incredible deals from a few short months ago are no longer to be had. With more going back to the office and Wall Street demanding more in person working, midtown should pick up more in the fall.
For 57th-72nd on Madison, he believes there is 40% availability today. I counted a bit less than that, but did not go all the way down to the 50s. Personally, I would have thought the number was in the 25% vacancy rate for 1st floor. Obviously, there are a ton of 2nd floor units available, but either way, there are a lot of spaces for rent on Madison. The broker believes vacancies are higher than post GFC and Madison is the highest vacancy retail in NYC today.
Pre-pandemic, there was a move south towards midtown on Madison. Pre-pandemic rents were $1,200-$1,500/ft. Now $700-800/ft for perspective. North of 65th (more residential) is $300-400/ft vs peak, where Elle Saab (70th and Madison @ 2,000/ft 2016) for perspective.
Madison/5th hardest hit market which are down 50% +. Peak deals in the 50s and 5th were $4,000-5,000/ft and now are $2,500/ft.
Best performing market is a specific area in Soho. Green Street between Prince and Spring rents remain at $400/ft, same as pre-pandemic with limited vacancies. However, Broadway had rents of $1,500+ and are now down over 50% with many vacancies.
Times Square rents were $2,000 ft. New deal happening now at $800/ft+ some free rent, so effective discount is closer to 70% off peak levels.
I lived on 74th and Park for a number of years and bought from Lexington Gardens Florist on 73rd and Lexington. Before I moved in 2016, they told me they were closing because the landlord was raising the rent despite most of the stores on the block being vacant. I just went by the store and it remains vacant 4 years later. Rents on 73rd and Lex are $125/ft range now and peak was $250/ft I believe Lexington Gardens was in the $200/ft range when the lease was coming due and the landlord wanted to raise rents. They had about 2,000 feet. So, the landlord is out $400,000/year for four years + CAM (common area charges) and any taxes the tenant would need to pay. The landlord will effectively be out almost $2,000,000 now. The landlord’s brilliant decision to raise rents in a declining market came back to haunt. This is not an isolated incident. I called the sign in the window, they are now asking $175/ft and my gut tells me there is a deal to do sub $150 given the vacancies on that block. When I lived on the UES, Gracie’s Market was on 71st and 3rd and closed 7 years ago. It remains vacant. They split up the space and a small Verizon has taken up maybe 15% of the space. Seven years with no rent!
I walked up 3rd Avenue Saturday am. T-Bar is the only occupied storefront between 73rd & 74th on the West side of 3rd which means 7 of 8 are vacant. Across the street, Duane Reade closed as did the nextdoor neighbor meaning about 70% of the east side of the block is vacant. What I am not sure people realize is places like Duane Reade are anchors which bring foot traffic to smaller stores. Anchors leaving destroys the blocks around it. See for yourself. I took the pic below in pano. The numbered stores are vacant. Only the orange canopy, T-Bar Restaurant, is occupied. However, other residential areas seem to be holding up better according to another broker. He believes 2nd Ave and Amsterdam are holding up better than other UES and UWS markets.
Structured leases where landlords paid the entire build out and first 3 years rent were a percent of sales instead of fixed rents were happening up to a couple months ago, but the tide has turned. The build out was a year’s rent for perspective. Two were UES and one was Noho deal happened as described.
Although the NYC retail market is hardly remarkable, it has bottomed and momentum has shifted slightly. The insane deals from a few months ago are gone with the exception of 5th Ave, Times Square and a few deals on Madison, but landlords seem to be playing a bit more hardball. NYC is resilient, but a long way from peak levels. Landlords will not do 10 year deals at huge discounted levels. They will continue to give deals on shorter term (3 years and in).
As an aside, on 64th and Madison, I saw this broken window on Friday am at Bottega Veneta. I asked, because it was not broken on Thursday. Someone tried to break in late Thursday night using some heavy tools. This is the fricken Upper East Side near the wealthiest buildings in the city.
Quick Bites
Stocks fell on Friday, with the Dow posting its worst weekly loss since October, as traders worried the Federal Reserve could start raising rates sooner than expected. The blue-chip average dropped 533 points, or 1.6%, to 33,290. The S&P 500 slid 1.3% to 4,166. Both the Dow and S&P 500 hit their session lows in the final minutes of trading and closed around those levels. The Nasdaq closed 0.9% lower at 14,030. Economic comeback plays led the market losses. For the week, the 30-stock Dow lost 3.5%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down by 1.9% and 0.2%, respectively, week to date. The S&P is up almost 11% YTD, while the Nasdaq is up almost 9% YTD.
St. Louis Federal Reserve President Jim Bullard told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday it was natural for the Fed to tilt a little “hawkish” this week and that the first rate increase from the central bank would likely come in 2022. The 10 year yield is back down to 1.44% in the flight to safety trade. I continue to believe this is a short at yields sub 1.5%.
The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage moved decidedly higher, hitting 3.25%, according to Mortgage News Daily. Last fall, mortgage rates dropped dramatically, and by February of this year, the average rate on the 30-year fixed was at 2.75%. The move was a reaction to comments made Wednesday by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell following the central bank’s meeting this week. Fed officials indicated that rate hikes could come in 2023, although they didn’t mention when they would start scaling back their massive bond-buying program.
The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index soared to its highest in 11 years on Thursday as rates across all vessel segments were lifted by strong demand for dry bulk commodities. The index measures changes in the cost of transporting various raw materials, such as coal and steel. The Baltic dry index, which tracks rates for capesize, panamax and supramax vessels, added 91 points, or 2.9%, to 3,267, its highest level since June 2010. The capesize index was up 202 points, or 5%, at a one-month high of 4,212. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes of coal and steel-making ingredient iron ore, increased $1,672 to $34,930.
The prices of commodities were falling sharply on Thursday, cutting into months of gains and weighing on equity markets, as China takes steps to cool off rising prices and the U.S. dollar strengthens. The decline in commodities was widespread, with futures prices for palladium and platinum falling more than 11% and 7%, respectively, along with declines of nearly 6% for corn futures and 4.8% for contracts tied to copper. Oil prices were also down more than 1%. Thursday’s move continued a slide that began earlier in the week, thanks in part to actions by Chinese regulators. A Chinese government agency announced a plan on Wednesday to release reserves of key metals, including copper and aluminum, according to Reuters. Officials in the country have also warned about speculation in financial markets in recent weeks. However, oil is in the low $70s and is up almost 50% YTD.
The CEO of a consumer products company told me about Amazon ad pricing and sent me this interesting article. Advertising on Amazon now costs, on average, $1.20 per click. Up 30% from $0.93 at the start of the year and up over 50% year-over-year. Demand for advertising on Amazon is rising faster than the ad inventory on and off Amazon, thus driving up advertising prices. According to Marketplace Pulse research, the average cost-per-click (CPC) was $0.85 in 2020. It reached the lowest point of $0.70 in early May when the pandemic caused supply chain disruptions, resulting in some brands running out of stock and pulling back on advertising. However, it recovered by mid-September and then hit three distinctive peaks: Prime Day in October, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in November, and holiday shopping in December. After that, CPC settled at around $0.90 for most of Q1 2021.
I am anxious to see the results of this new experiment. Young homeless people in the Big Apple will soon be getting $1,250 in no-strings-attached cash each month — in a $2.5 million city-backed experiment to see if they use it to get off the streets and try to get jobs. The “Trust Youth Initiative” — partially funded by the city — will start with up to 40 homeless people ages 18 to 24, “especially Black, Indigenous, Latinx and LGBTQ youth,” the organizers said in a release. They will get the monthly cash for up to two years, with no limits on how they spend it — and larger up-front payments available to get into housing. Personally, I strongly believe the city has a homeless problem. Paying homeless people $1,250/month no strings attached does not seem like the greatest idea to me. Many have drug or alcohol issues and are mentally unstable. They need treatment. I am not convinced the money will go to the right place, but hope I am wrong. If anything, programs like this are more likely to attract homeless people.
One year after the movement to "defund" police saw cities slash budgets and cut funding, the U.S. has seen an uptick in crime. Homicides alone are up 24% since January and more than 70% of people said they believe crime is on the rise nationally. As a result, the pendulum may be swinging back in favor of the police. Cities like New York City, Oakland, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Los Angeles are planning to reinstate tens of millions for the construction of new police precincts, increase police department budgets, among other plans to bankroll more efforts to confront the uptick in crime.
Bill Maher had some advice for Lin-Manuel Miranda on Friday. “Stop the apologizing,” said Maher about Miranda’s reaction to criticism that his new film, In the Heights, does not depict more darkly-colored Puerto Ricans onscreen.“You’re the guy who made the founding fathers Black and Hispanic! I don’t think you have to apologize to Twitter.” Miranda, the film’s wunderkind composer/lyricist/producer/co-scribe and star apologized in a social media post earlier this week for the the lack of Afro-Latinx representation in the musical. “The committee that makes note of everyone’s skin tone took note of it,” said Maher. “Do I think that he really thinks he should apologize? I don’t,” inveighed the comedian on Real Time. “I think that he just wants to avoid the news cycle, and I don’t blame him.” “This is why people hate Democrats; It’s cringey,” said the host of Miranda’s critics. I am glad someone from the left is speaking up when the masses are criticizing a man who created Hamilton which showcased people of color on one of the most successful shows on Broadway. This is the 2 minute video of Bill defending Lin. The movie gets 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and looks amazing. Why does everything have to be so criticized? Why can’t we applaud Lin-Manuel for all that he has done and his brilliant creativity?
More than a dozen Republican House members, led by former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, asked President Biden Thursday to undergo a cognitive test and release the results “so the American people know the full mental and intellectual health of their President.” “They deserve to know that he or she can perform the duties of Head of State and Commander in Chief. “After this most recent embarrassing performance overseas, I thought it was time to come out [with the letter],” Jackson (R-Texas) told Fox News. I had been critical of Biden’s cognitive state well before the election. Yes, he has made a ton of blunders, but he has been a little better than I thought in his prepared speeches. I would love to see the results of a test. After all, I have never heard of a press secretary not allowing a President to take impromptu questions. Jen Psaki said, President Joe Biden taking impromptu questions from reporters "is not something we recommend." What the hell is that? If Biden has nothing to hide, he should take questions and not only prepared ones. He is the leader of the free world and sorry, I expect the President to be able to handle a question without being given a head’s up first. What would have happened if Trump only took prepared questions? No chance Biden takes it. After all, Trump did not disclose tax returns, something I felt was wrong.
I am not a big fan of the Iranian government. They hate America, Israel and Jews. The president-elect is not exactly a mensch. If Joe Biden thinks Vladimir Putin deserves to be called a killer, his description of Ebrahim Raisi, the 60-year-old president-elect of Iran, is likely to be unprintable. The youngest member of the 1988 Tehran death committee, Raisi has been accused of systematically sending as many as 3,000 people to slaughter. When he was head of the judiciary floggings and executions flourished, yet many see this election as a staging post to his becoming supreme leader when Ayatollah Khamenei dies. Raisi was 28 at the time of the massacres – a Tehran deputy prosecutor who stood in on the death committee for Morteza Eshraghi, Tehran’s chief prosecutor. I wonder what brilliant nuclear deals we will make with this guy? Pay them billions to help them fund terror groups? Allow them to build nukes to blow up Israel?
I have received a handful of questions about choice ranked voting as it will be used in the primaries for the NYC mayor elections. These articles give a good explanation. I have not spent a ton of time on it, but feel it is a bit complicated and prefer to keep it simple. Many voters won’t take the time to understand this system and don’t want any excuses when it comes to voting for important office. On a positive note, I just cannot fathom a worse mayor than DeBlasio. Seems to me, Eric Adams is the lesser evil of the group. Every poll I have seen shows Adams in the lead. Ranked-choice voting is like voting in rounds: If one candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round, they win. But if no one does, the last-place candidate will be eliminated, and all other candidates move to the next round. Votes for the eliminated candidate are then reallocated to whichever candidate those voters ranked second — and votes are re-tabulated. Rounds of elimination will continue until two candidates remain. The concept is relatively simple: voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, instead of casting a vote for just one. You can mark a first choice candidate, second choice candidate, and so on up to your fifth choice candidate. If you prefer, you can still vote for just one candidate.
It's designed for those times you voted and thought: "I like more than one candidate on this ballot." Or maybe you concluded: "I really like Candidate A but I don't think he can win, so I'm going to vote for Candidate B because I think that person can beat Candidate C in the general election."I have written extensively about Washington Square Park and the disgusting place it has become. Here is another article outlining the state of the park. A knife and taser wielding man created chaos Friday. There is something called leadership which the city lacks. There should be a massive police presence and arrests which result in real jail time and serious fines. The people who live on or near the park are in turmoil and are considering not paying taxes to make a statement. Why are so many people with means leaving NYC? The park is another example. Four more readers with means called me in the last week asking for help moving to Florida. How can anyone blame them? Julia and I went for a 2 hour walk on Father’s Day am around the city. So much for the City Which Never Sleeps, as everything was closed until 11am. I will say this, new leadership will be welcomed. The city smells like urine and weed and homeless are sleeping on the streets. I hope Adams or whoever wins decides to be tougher on crime and cleans up NYC to bring it back to its old glory.
The heatwave gripping the US west is simultaneously breaking hundreds of temperature records, exacerbating a historic drought and priming the landscape for a summer and fall of extreme wildfire. Salt Lake City hit a record-breaking 107F (42C), while in Texas and California, power grid operators are asking residents to conserve energy to avoid rolling blackouts and outages. And all this before we’ve even reached the hottest part of the summer.
Oregon is experiencing a shortage of chlorine, the chemical used in small amounts by water treatment facilities to prevent harmful bacteria growth in drinking water supply. State officials say they have a plan to help water districts across Oregon get the chlorine they need if their stockpiles run low and there’s no threat to the water the public depends on. But city leaders in Lake Oswego and Tigard have asked residents to reduce their water use during the shortage.
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have taken the art market and its many adjacent industries by storm this year. And its extremely volatile trading activities make it still too early to say how it’s going to play out. But according to one of the earliest purveyors of cryptocurrencies, the vast majority of NFTs in the market today will be worthless in just a few years. In an interview on Bloomberg TV this week, Coinbase cofounder Fred Ehrsam drew parallels between the rise of cryptocurrencies and the dotcom boom of the 1990s. “I go so far as to say that 90% of NFTs produced, they probably will have little to no value in three to five years,” Ehrsam said. “You could say the same thing about early internet companies in the late ’90s.” I have not participated here. Not sure if that matters. I have a pretty solid art collection. I mean traditional Modern Art. I don’t mean digital crap. Clearly, I could be wrong, and maybe I am speaking out of anger for having missed the opportunity. However, give me the ability to own a piece of art on my wall or one I have on my phone and my choice is clear. I do not know Ehrsam, but believe he is probably right.
To be crystal clear, I am for inclusion and being supportive regardless of race, religion, sexual preference…However, I have written extensively about the over woke culture and feel we are now close to the end of the stupidity after reading this one. NEW laws are being proposed by two university doctors to protect animals — from hate speech. A research paper suggests anti-animal language should be banned. It says “speciesist” hate speech is as bad as racism. The proposals — published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies — would see cats, dogs, farm animals, even seagulls safeguarded. And the plans ignore the fact animals can’t be offended by words. Last night Tory MP Nigel Mills branded the idea “utter woke nonsense” and “a complete waste of time”. Dr Josh Milburn and Dr Alasdair Cochrane of the University of Sheffield suggest it could be hate speech to say the lives of a non-native species matter less than a native one. They say it would be impractical to censure wounding words “only if they actually wound.” Rarely, is the man who writes thousands of words for the Rosen Report at a loss for words. However, I find myself struggling for a response which does not include an incredible amount of profanity followed by kicking furniture, but here we are today. Someone make it stop. To be clear, if a seagull craps on my car, it is going to be yelled at, screamed at, ridiculed and berated by me. If this becomes illegal, I will be going to jail. I am sure the system will find a way which will require me to have $1mm in bail, but violent predators will get out for $1. Ill end up, “making friends” at Rikers. I can see it now, all because I screamed at a Seagull. If the RosenReport stops being sent, chances are Rikers does not have WiFi for me.
Juneteenth, observed on June 19, commemorates the end of all slavery in the United States and is celebrated across the country. This year, however, in its 156th anniversary, will be the first year Juneteenth will be celebrated as a federal holiday. The House of Representatives voted 415-14 Wednesday to make Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday. President Biden then signed the bill into law Thursday, making Friday an official federal holiday.
In this wild market, in which record low inventory and soaring demand is pushing home prices ever higher, you might expect that any old thing you put on the market would sell. Mimi Foster, a real estate agent with Falcon Property Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, decided to put one home to the test. She listed a five-bedroom home in the Broadmoor Bluffs Estates neighborhood for $590,000. That may sound like a steal, but buyer beware. While the house appears fine from the outside, and is situated among homes that typically sell for $750,000 to $800,000, what awaits on the other side of the front door is vandalism, destruction, animal remains, years of neglect, and... a pretty intense odor. But Foster didn't hold back in her description of the house when she listed it on Tuesday. Describing the home as "every landlord's nightmare," Foster wrote: "If you dream of owning your own little slice of hell and turning it into a piece of heaven, then look no further!" "Come feast your senses, DO NOT GO ON BACK DECK. DO NOT OPEN FREEZER IN BASEMENT," she writes in the Redfin listing, which has been viewed more than half a million times. "Honestly, you can feel the smell," Foster said. My view is the housing market has gotten out of control. Rates are too low and the Fed is too accommodating from every perspective. The Fed continues to buy $40bn/month in mortgages. Why? This is just another example. Things appear to be cooling in some markets, but not enough in my mind.
Virus/Vaccine
Data in the US remains flat to slightly improving. Daily cases are down to 11k for the 7 day average and hospitalizations are approximately 18k vs peak of 136k. The 7 day average daily death rate is now 300 or less than 10% of the peak from early Jan. More than 2.59 billion doses have been administered across 180 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 38.5 million doses a day. In the U.S., 317 million doses have been given so far. In the last week, an average of 1.29 million doses per day were administered. Although we are off the lows for daily doses, we remain over 2mm lower/day than peak in the US.
According to this article, Google has been funding Peter Daszak studies with the EcoHealth Alliance for 10 years. The article shows papers which cite Google. No wonder Google searches make it hard to find things about lab leaks and EcoHealth Alliance. Yes, there are multiple conflicts here including Daszak, his role in the WHO investigation, his role in the letter denouncing the lab leak theory and Google funding the experiments. Some smart person said, “Follow the money.” I just want people to understand the depths of the deceit here and why the massive conflicts between Google, Daszak, Fauci make anything they say worthless. No, I am not a right wing conspiracy theorist. Read these articles. Biden has asked for an investigation. The decade-plus relationship is evident in a 2010 study on bat flaviviruses, which lists Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance Vice President Jonathan Epstein as authors, that thanks Google.org for funding. A 2014 study on henipavirus spillover, which was authored by Daszak, similarly declares it was partly “supported by Google.org.”
The Delta Variant is getting a lot of attention. This link gives a lot of information about it and the CDC now considers it a “variant of concern.”
This study suggests that more than half of individuals with positive PCR tests were unlikely to have been infectious. This is a topic I discussed at length over the past six or more months. This also suggests many of the Covid-19 designated deaths were caused by other factors. Check out the article from the Journal of Infection. Given the number of questions on this topic, I would expect this to be a popular one.
Most positive tests in our sample showed Ct values of 25 or higher, indicating a low viral load. Ct values were on average lower in symptomatic than in asymptomatic individuals. Our results are similar to the observations made in the ONS Survey with consistently low positive rates (0.06%) during the summer months, followed by a rise to more than 1% by the end of October 2020. A substantial proportion (45%-68%) of test positive individuals in the UK did not report symptoms at the time of their positive PCR test [6].
In light of our findings that more than half of individuals with positive PCR test results are unlikely to have been infectious, RT-PCR test positivity should not be taken as an accurate measure of infectious SARS-CoV-2 incidence. Our results confirm the findings of others that the routine use of “positive” RT-PCR test results as the gold standard for assessing and controlling infectiousness fails to reflect the fact “that 50-75% of the time an individual is PCR positive, they are likely to be post-infectious” [7].
Interesting article sent to me from one of my most loyal readers, WH. The title is, “Why Has "Ivermectin" Become a Dirty Word?” I am not here to push this drug. However, the silencing of the message is what concerns me and should concern you. Facebook, YouTube and others blocked content relating to this treatment. I understand there is a great deal of misinformation out there, but the uneven censorship is concerning. Free speech and free press is limited and the ultimate decision makers are Google, Facebook, YouTube and others. I am just not sure I feel comfortable with the outcome here. I felt the article is balanced.