Card #05: ⚠️🧫🧬 PCR Test Reliability
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On November 11, 2020 a legal ruling by the Lisbon Court of Appeal in Portugal stated that a PCR test “is unable to determine, beyond reasonable doubt, that a positive result corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus”. The case centered on the reliability (or lack thereof) of Covid-19 PCR tests. The judges argued that a raw laboratory metric alone did not constitute a definitive legal proof of active, transmissible "disease" or a physical illness. The legal ruling touched on a known diagnostic nuance: PCR tests are so sensitive that they can amplify inactive, non-viable, or "dead" viral remnants. Because of this, a person can continue to test positive on a PCR test weeks after they have recovered and are no longer contagious. The conclusion of their 34-page ruling included the following: “In view of current scientific evidence, this test shows itself to be unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that such positivity corresponds, in fact, to the infec
On November 11, 2020 a legal ruling by the Lisbon Court of Appeal in Portugal stated that a PCR test “is unable to determine, beyond reasonable doubt, that a positive result corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus”. The case centered on the reliability (or lack thereof) of Covid-19 PCR tests.
The judges argued that a raw laboratory metric alone did not constitute a definitive legal proof of active, transmissible "disease" or a physical illness.
The legal ruling touched on a known diagnostic nuance: PCR tests are so sensitive that they can amplify inactive, non-viable, or "dead" viral remnants. Because of this, a person can continue to test positive on a PCR test weeks after they have recovered and are no longer contagious.
The conclusion of their 34-page ruling included the following: “In view of current scientific evidence, this test shows itself to be unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that such positivity corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
In the eyes of the court a positive test does not correspond to a Covid case. The two most important reasons for this, said the judges, are that, “the test’s reliability depends on the number of cycles used" and that “the test’s reliability depends on the viral load present."
This is not the first challenge to the credibility of PCR tests. The results have a lot to do with the number of amplifications that are performed, or the ‘cycle threshold.’ This number in most American and European labs is 35–40 cycles, but experts have claimed that even 35 cycles is far too many, and that a more reasonable protocol would call for 25–30 cycles. (Each cycle exponentially increases the amount of viral 🧬 DNA in the sample).
Earlier this year, data from three US states – New York, Nevada and Massachusetts – showed that when the amount of the virus found in a person was taken into account, up to 90 percent of people who tested positive could actually have been negative, as they may have been carrying only tiny amounts of the virus.
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Topic: COVID-19. Comments: 0.