Nutjobs have got to nut. Don’t try and reason with him, because (unless he has done something bad), reason is not whats motivating him. Just play the game.

eg: There is no point worrying about the test, the government already has your DNA which it harvests every week from your rubbish collection. What they are looking for now is people to put in the *next* testing program, those who are resistant to voluntarily supplying the DNA, and you are just drawing attention to yourself by refusing – better to let them have what they already have, and you be a sleeper agent on the inside, play along until the revolution…

etc etc.

Also shut down the wifi and keep him busy with manual tasks, or games, and put a wire mesh over the router (to stop the waves getting into his body), keep him away from sources of nutjobbery.

Govt are laughing then.

That’s his point. 🙂

I don’t want to stir a hornets nest but a relative is about to lose his job because he refuses to take any form of covid test PCR/Antigen whatever.

II expect he’s giving his employers all the excuse they’ve been waiting for  to get rid of him – I’d imagine this isn’t his first and only foible.

How does it differentiate between Human DNA and viral RNA?

So first off the lateral flow tests, are as described a dipstick type test like pregnancy test, they use antibodies to look for viral proteins & are nothing to do with DNA

The PCR test uses a technique called Reverse Transcriptas Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RTPCR) also known as quantitative PCR (QPCR)

The process works like this…
A swab with the viral sample is dipped in a solution, which is then passed through a column that selectively binds RNA over DNA and protein(on the basis of the charge of the molecule)
The RNA is then washed into a separate tube.
The RNA is converted into DNA by an enzyme called reverse Transcriptas.
The DNA is then separated into 2 strands by heating and 2 pairs of primers are added, these primers are stretches of DNA that are specific to parts of the covid – 19 virus. (and specific to this only: they are about 25 bases – a, c, g or t- long, they are this specific because there are 4 to the power of 25 possible combos)
The PCR step then uses another enzyme to make a copy of the DNA between each primer pair (each pair is about 200 bases apart)
At this point a 3rd piece of dna specific to a 25base region in the middle of the 200base amplified fragment comes in, this fragment has a fluorescent probe attached, that flashes at a specific wavelength after each round of amplification when a laser is fired at it, but only flashes when bound to DNA.
The amplification continues for 35 odd rounds, each time the amount of amplified DNA increases exponentially (because your excess of primers bind to the original dna and every copied fragment)
At the end of this reaction the fluorescence is analysed and if its above the detection threshold you can tell if virus was present or not.

Thing is there’s no reason to assume that this is all that’s being done with the swab you posted, that swab also contains your DNA

BUT, & it’s a big but, the process I’ve just described gives you a simple readout, it’s easily run in parallel & the technique itself is relatively simple.

Now sequencing a genome is a Lot more expensive, you usually need more starting material, you need more equipment, better trained staff, the process I described above tells you if 2 regions 200bases long are present, the 6.4 billion bases of your genome are a lot more work!
On top of all that you need a lot of number crunching to order and analyse those 6.4bn bases (genome sequencing is done in chunks of 25bases that are then assembled like a giant jigsaw, using a high performance computing cluster)

The main reason that there’s no conspiracy to sequence everyone’s genome is cost

Each PCR test costs maybe £50 with staffing etc costs

Each genome costs >£1000 to sequence to a decent depth and you’ve then got 150gb of data to store

And as someone who sequences peoples DNA for a job I can assure you that data privacy is something we have to adhere to rigorously, we are regularly audited and have to complete annual courseson, sign a declaration & the entire institute, from the professor who’s name is on the ethics agreement (required for all human work) to the technician or researcher risk prosecution.
Each patient has to consent to their tissue & data being used (its anonymised before it reaches the lab) and they can withdraw that consent at any time

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/policies-standards-legislation/data-protection-and-information-governance/gdpr-guidance/what-law-says/consent-research/

Thanks kimbers excellent post.
This explains why the PCR test takes a god few hours too.

You could try the cost angle. It’s over 10 years since I worked in the field but back then it was about £5-£10 for a PCR test for a single virus. A test to identify you as an individual (paternity test) was £200-£250 and a health screen looking for disease markers was £1000s (and pretty new cutting edge). If you google for paternity test price and a full DNA health screen from 23andme or similar you should be able to find up to date costs.

Yeah paddlers costing is probably more accurate based on scale they must be doing, ignore my £50! £5 is more likely

23&me are about £150 for health screen, this isn’t a full genome sequence, just a selection of specific regions scattered throughout your genome that have a known risk %age for diseases associated with them.

If you want an example of what big brother Genomics might look like go to Iceland (the country not the shop)

They’ve sequenced 2/3rds of their population and there’s been no health insurance catastrophe, just lots of rare diseases uncovered & explained

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCODE_genetics

The problem isn’t the specific mechanics of the PCR test, @5plusn8. If you stick a swab into someone’s throat, it will have their DNA on it. The fact that the test isn’t interested in that, and discards it, is immaterial. If you believe that someone has nefarious intent, then you’ll also believe that they will take that DNA.

It’s why I’ve been avoiding hairdressers all these years. They can’t harvest my valuable DNA from hair samples if I don’t go. HA! (The male pattern baldness is unrelated).

Actually, I am quite happy with society dictating that nutjobs get comeuppance for their views when the views clearly get in the way of everyone else’s safety, and suggest that the nutjob a) spends too much time on Facebook and b) is incapable of making good decisions. I’m just sorry it’s happening to OP’s family.

II expect he’s giving his employers all the excuse they’ve been waiting for to get rid of him – I’d imagine this isn’t his first and only foible.

You know all those tales of big multinationals making it a dismissible offence to not hold the handrail when you go up stairs?

Never seems to happen to the productive and useful employees does it.

Never seems to happen to the productive and useful employees does it.

I have to say I have never heard of it happening anyway…

I use this website for H&S issues like this at work.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/myth-busting/2014/case271-visitor-handrail-mobile-phone-stairs.htm

Really informative thread! Some arguments @5plus8 may be able to use:

– if the company wanted your DNA they don’t need a C19 sample to get it. Just looking around his workplace etc – he can search for what forensics need to get DNA from.

– as above, the C19 PCR isn’t analysing his DNA (too expensive) and it’s not even analysing the viral RNA – it’s just looking for a few distinguishing marks.

– even if the company did want his DNA to analyse, the worst they could do with it is sack him, and they’re going to do that if he doesn’t take the test.

Has he picked up on this particular conspiracy theory?

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-conspiracy-theory-about-dna-from-covid-tests-makes-no-sense

I always find these threads a little disheartening. It’s like people like to talk about talking about mental health in one breath, and in the next are quick to be dismissive of someone as a nutter that can’t be reasoned with having read a paragraph or two of text about them. If it were me I’d like to think I’d be given more of a chance.

II expect he’s giving his employers all the excuse they’ve been waiting for to get rid of him – I’d imagine this isn’t his first and only foible.

You imagine!?!? What relevance has your imagining got here? Maybe don’t imagine, it’s a slippery slope 😉

Tell him you heard that the Russians started the DNA sequencing rumour to discourage people from taking the tests in order to attempt to destabilise the West by weakening its population, just like they did with Brexit. He’ll be at the front of the queue tomorrow.

A private company collecting that data would need to get permission from you to store it under the data protection act.

If found in violation it would cost a fortune.

If found in violation to that scale it would almost certainly involve the controlling mind going to jail.

If it were me I’d like to think I’d be given more of a chance

Agreed. I wouldn’t expect it to be easy but I’m surprised at the number of people saying it’s impossible.

Has he never had a blood test done? For anything, at any point in his life? If he has, then he has nothing to lose. If the dark powers wanted to know about his DNA they would already have it via that means.

What about standard, childhood immunisations? Plenty of opportunities to harvest DNA samples throughout the average person’s life.

If he’s not had the secret police knocking on his door so far, why would he think that would change going forward?

I saw a documentary about that a while back. Some red-headed woman had her DNA sampled during vaccinations, she worked as a Special Agent at the FBI too. Her partner had some stupid name, Wolf or something, and he was always papping on about aliens and conspiracy theories and stuff. And bees, somewhat randomly. I think he was a sandwich short of a picnic, tell you the truth.

He’s going to be shocked when he finds out about the Lateral Flow tests planting Lizard Eggs in his brain…

It is a known fact that if you sign up to a dna ancestry search, your dna is requested by the police, and there are recorded incidents of people being arrested for crimes in the past after signing up to such tests.
Also on the note of insurance, i would find it highly likely that insurance wouldn’t want as much info on people as they can lay their grubby little hands on, remember that information is a comodity

Ok seeds planted, just got off a zoom call with him where we agreed to do a research exercise together. Kind of you show me yours I’ll show you mine.
I gave him my keywords for him to search, and copied the zipper machine explanation to him.
And yes posters are correct he is driven by the covid dna retention law thing. Which I debunked for him ages ago, but he has given me some things to search too.
My keywords to search on:
Elle McPherson (no kidding)
The anal swab thing came up…
Vaccine induced stroke
VARS (its actually VAERS but I didn’t have he heart to tell him)
He attempted to mention chips, bill gates, nanobots etc, we both agreed this was too far fetched.
Covid shutdowns to save the enviornment (if this were true I’d be happy about it)

Thats it for now, I will update.

I know very few people who’ve actually had a Covid test. So if it’s an attempt to grab everyone’s DNA it’s failing massively.

On the other hand, most people I know have had a blood test at some point.

Makes yer think! 🙂

Progress.

Mucho thanks to all those who answered my question, I appreciate your efforts to educate me and another random stranger.

He accepts my point that all his keywords were antivax with nothing about DNA retention from CV19 tests other than the afore mentioned myth, which he also accepts is not true. Score 1 to logic and reason.

I have however committed to a keyboard battle with him over vaccines, but that’s reserved for later. Score 1 to the bad guys, but chance for review. I can feel myself getting more ignorant.

He is finding the PCR keyword search believable. But needs more time. Another score, his wife is over the moon.

Test is booked for 0920 tomorrow. Another call with him tonight

I think I got the most success by getting him to face reality earlier:
Do you really think there are loads of dodgy people working in the lab breaking all the data protection rules?
Are you really gonna chuck your very good job away over this when if your theory is correct, then they have your data anyway? If not then they’ll get it from your dustbin tonight.

These things made him go quiet.

Also on the note of insurance, i would find it highly likely that insurance wouldn’t want as much info on people as they can lay their grubby little hands on, remember that information is a comodity

At the moment at least it is illegal for life insurance companies in the UK to request or otherwise use DNA testing for premium rating purposes. Yes they’d like to but they can’t.

Can we have some sources (like real actual credible sources and not some link to an article by The Mysterious Truther about someone’s cousin’s ex they found on Facebook) to anyone being arrested in the UK after signing up to a DNA ancestry type thing as well please.

Can we have some sources (like real actual credible sources and not some link to an article by The Mysterious Truther about someone’s cousin’s ex they found on Facebook) to anyone being arrested in the UK after signing up to a DNA ancestry type thing as well please.

Waits whilst everyone posts all the well known US cases…

The government already has his DNA thanks to cashless society, bank cards contain DNA reading chips which they then send whenever you make a purchase, smartphones with the fingerprint tech and inbuilt cameras to record your face all uploaded with contactless payments. This is why they faked a pandemic to get more people to use cashless. Too late for him to worry he best keep his job now they have that much information and he may unemployed.

Buy a large fish, walk up to him and slap him round the face a few times. If that doesn’t work, god knows.

Waits whilst everyone posts all the well known US cases…

Exactly what I was expecting too 😀 . Even then I think people will struggle to come up with any unless the perp was already a suspect…

Interesting list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspected_perpetrators_of_crimes_identified_with_GEDmatch

@5plusn8 – indeed, however it is all still US based 🙂

Ok the pigeon is in the pot, repeat the pigeon is in the pot.

His wife called, he is on his way to get tested.
We had deep chats last night and I can’t claim all the credit as I think he long realised he was being daft and needed a way out. So I just acted as midwife to his apology/reversal which was in no way coming out on its own.

Interestingly I think this was all caused by the fact that he doesn’t like his job, which by all accounts is a bit sucky.
The keyword search helped him to find a way to say that actually he wants to use his brain at work, and is fed up with being a donkey. So he is quite fired up about learning more about biology etc and is looking at courses with an idea to become a lab tech.

Once again thanks to all those who put the effort in to explain/help. I had no idea where to start and just a small nudge at the science was what it needed. (TINAS, GRUM, martinhutch, grahamt1980, LS, PhilO, and anyone else I missed) What has happened here is that you have poured oil on troubled waters, all is calm with the relations.

So he is quite fired up about learning more about biology etc and is looking at courses with an idea to become a lab tech.

Probably best to keep quiet about 5G and Bill Gates in the interview for that one. 🙂

Well done, must admit I tend to see anyone willing to say some of this conspiracy shit out loud as a bit of a lost cause, so it’s nice to be proved wrong. Sending the terrier of truth to flush him out of the rabbithole!

I think it was a kind of cry for help. as many noted, maybe he didn’t want to go back to his job, which was 100% true and needed a forward path to make him see sense.

Maybe he’s done something very bad at some point and is worried that DNA would link him to a crime…

It’s going to be disappointing when he finds the secret police are waiting for him at the test centre. 🤣

I think there are possibly quite a lot of people who have gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole, realised that their concerns have no basis, and just need a helping hand to find a way of putting it behind them without “losing face” as it were. The pandemic and lockdown have all affected us in different ways. If you are prone to anxiety, or it’s covering for other worries, it could pin itself on any particular weird aspect. Mine does.

Some have gone down the hole and just can’t stop digging though. I suggest we just fill the hole in on top of them.

Nice one, glad I was proved wrong.

nickc, it isn’t the first time I have done this fools errand, but it is the first time someone has moved from their position. So I can understand why you would expect it to go nowhere.

I can’t help thinking the pressure of losing his job helped him to change his mind. A normal discussion like this is just pub/internet warrior conversations where neither side has anything to lose, so keeping a conspiracy position is harmless to them.
It all goes tits up when they believe it so much they act on it, see the recent capitiol invasion for the results of that. And countless mass shootings in the US.

Excellent news!

That’s a solid win! There are times when this place really does warm my heart and make me realise that there are helpful, positive people out there.