health

COVID-19 rapid tests can breed confusion – here's how to make sense of the results

8 Comments
By Nathaniel Hafer, Apurv Soni, and Yukari Manabe

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8 Comments
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PCR is not a good tool for diagnosis. Detecting genetic material after multiple amplifications does not mean someone is sick. People who have symptoms of a disease should seek care, others should carry on as normal regardless of what a PCR result says.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

The scientists who developed the PCR test say that it is not for testing of covid and viruses and will show false results.

Seems other so called health experts know better than them.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Always if one of my coworkers is positiv, I have to get tested too, because I had close contacts to them.

So far I got tested 6x with a PCR test. All tests were negative, even I was in close contact with my coworker, also during lunch without mask and during meetings in small meeting rooms.

Either I was just lucky not to catch it, or I was asymptomatic positiv and the PCR tests were wrong, or the virus is not so easily spread like we get told to.

I mean 6x very close contact with positive people and all my 6 PCR tests were negative?

If these PCR tests were correct, then I think I was really lucky.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I've known people who have PCR and RAT tests to varying levels of accuracy, some false positives and false negatives. Mainly all they've been useful for is to support a dubious narrative of vaccine passports, lockdowns, travel restrictions and work restrictions. Never had any of these tests myself, and am not aware of having had any symptoms either, even though I took none of the jabs.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

PCR is not a good tool for diagnosis. Detecting genetic material after multiple amplifications does not mean someone is sick

The PCR is not a tool for diagnosing disease, it is a tool for diagnosing infection, which it does perfectly well and it is the reason why it is considered the gold standard. PCR do not diagnose AIDS either, but it is very useful to detect HIV infection.

People who have symptoms of a disease should seek care, others should carry on as normal regardless of what a PCR result says.

Since infected people represent a risk for others even if they have no symptoms this runs contrary to what the actual experts recommend. Easy, simple precautions help a lot reducing the spread of the disease from asymptomatic/presymptomatic carriers.

The scientists who developed the PCR test say that it is not for testing of covid and viruses and will show false results.

No, "they" don't. Kary Mullis (the one that have several baseless antiscientific declarations) would have to resurrect to life to have any opinion about covid. He was of course completely wrong about the detection of HIV and its relationship with AIDS, so even as a zombie it would have no credibility.

Mainly all they've been useful for is to support a dubious narrative of vaccine passports, lockdowns, travel restrictions and work restrictions

Not at all, their main use is to keep track of the number of infections and to see how it relates to the number of cases of disease, so valid assumptions about the dangers of covid can be made, they have also been very useful to reduce the spreading by isolating people that can spread the pathogen. The isolation of infective people is a well substantiated way to reduce spreading and it can be justifed or not depending on the kind of isolation and the risk it means to others, it is not the same to be positive as a helper in a nursing home and to be positive being a farmer.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

I noticed an absence of explanation for CT values so here's Dr Fauci on that:

The problems is not lack of explanation for CT values, after all there is no explanation for the difference in tests using intercalating fluorsencent dyes and those using probes, nor about dissociation curves analysis, etc.

The problem is presenting only one limited window to information and invalidly generalize from it to misrepresent the results of the test. Different tests using different technology, different primers, different reagents, different protocols will have also different CT values even for exactly the same sample, and each test will give the same titer even with these different CT values.

Lower genome copy values will still means the person has been infected, which is the purpose of the test, and this will let a professional understand how much of a risk of spreading the infection from this person. Having a titer of 1x10^3 copies does not mean the same for someone that had 1x10^6 the day before than for someone that had 1x10^2 in the previous test.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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