Is pcr testing reliable. Just how accurate are rapid antigen tests? Two testing experts explain the latest data

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Yet we breathlessly observe the test numbers as reported by media outlets and websites like world o meter. This is a very popular website. I checked it many times. However, I had no idea that the number of cases is unknown as it relies on a test that does not work. Furthermore, the number of covid deaths is also greatly exaggerated as I cover in the article How the Covid 19 Mortality Rate Was Irresponsibly Exaggerated.

There are a lot of very nice graphs on this website, like the one above. The directive does not allow the counting of co-morbidities. Applied on April 16, , this directive was conducive to an immediate sharp increase in the number of deaths attributed to Covid One can tell by reading the documentation, or the Covid Test Fact Sheet that is given to those that are tested. Therefore, it is also likely that you may be placed in isolation to avoid spreading the virus to others.

There is a very small chance that this test can give a positive result that is wrong a false positive result. Your healthcare provider will work with you to determine how best to care for you based on the test results along with medical history, and your symptoms. This is not true, as has been covered already. Is this test FDA-approved or cleared?

The PCR test standard was used for the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. However, this undermines all of the math in all of the tests discussed so far. How do we know the use of PCR testing at cycles was known by authorities to be fraudulent? Because now that the vaccine program has been rolled out the vaccinated are only given PCR tests at a reasonable 28 cycles, while the unvaccinated continue to be subjected to the fraudulent cycle PCR testing.

This of course deceptively insures that the unvaccinated continue to generate completely asymptomatic false positives, and can then be made to appear to be driving the spread of the illness. Meanwhile the vaccinated are much less likely to test positive given their testing is now, indefensible by any scientific measure, conducted at the lower 28 cycle threshold when compared to the unvaccinated conducted at cycles.

Yes, so that could explain any difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. So both this test, and all other tests, including the tests submitted by Pfizer and Moderna and others to obtain emergency use authorization are now invalid.

None of the math I went through makes any difference as the PCR tests were never legitimate. Covid is not the first time the PCR tests created a number of false positives. The following occurred back in For months, nearly everyone involved thought the medical center had had a huge whooping cough outbreak, with extensive ramifications. Nearly 1, health care workers at the hospital in Lebanon, N. Herndon, were told they appeared to have the disease; and thousands were given antibiotics and a vaccine for protection.

Hospital beds were taken out of commission, including some in intensive care. Then, about eight months later, health care workers were dumbfounded to receive an e-mail message from the hospital administration informing them that the whole thing was a false alarm.

Not a single case of whooping cough was confirmed with the definitive test, growing the bacterium, Bordetella pertussis, in the laboratory. Instead, it appears the health care workers probably were afflicted with ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold. Now, as they look back on the episode, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists say the problem was that they placed too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test that led them astray.

At Dartmouth the decision was to use a test, P. It is a molecular test that, until recently, was confined to molecular biology laboratories. Kathryn Edwards, an infectious disease specialist and professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University.

We are trying to figure out how to use methods that have been the purview of bench scientists. So even though the PCR tests failed in the field rather than a controlled and sterile lab environment and created a faux mini pandemic, they were introduced and accepted to test covid, where they failed once again. Curiously I found another article linked to the above article in the New York Times which carried ridiculous and false information about the PCR tests and proposed an even less accurate test be used.

During this pandemic, that has meant relying heavily on PCR testing, an extremely accurate but time- and labor-intensive method that requires samples to be processed at laboratories. As we have established, the PCR test may be time and labor intensive, but it is not accurate, much less extremely accurate. But as the virus continues its rampage across the country and tests remain in short supply in many regions, researchers and public health experts have grown increasingly vocal about revising this long-held credo.

This is amazing. It means that many people had no idea the PCR tests were incredibly inaccurate. Outside of rolling dice or tarrot cards, there is no test less accurate than a PCR test. Health System.

It is a catastrophe. Again this is another microbiologist who has no idea PCR tests are not effective tests. There is really no excuse for this ignorance by a person who works in the field. And these tests are still relatively scarce nationwide. Government officials have pledged to astronomically scale up the number of point-of-care tests by fall, increasing by millions the weekly tally of tests conducted.

The entire covid pandemic was driven by the faulty PCR test, and that generated the majority of its results as false positives. However, this is all based upon the belief in a test that never worked. A better option, Dr. Mina said, might be antigen testing, which identifies pieces of protein. Two such tests, made by BD and Quidel, have received emergency authorization from the F.

According to Dr. Angelova this test does not work for covid. And It was not broadly adopted. You might recall a time when testing required long waits in your vehicle, several days of waiting before receiving results. Now at-home rapid testing is available at most neighborhood pharmacies, straightforward enough you can administer yourself and have results within minutes. While the FDA has approved multiple types of testing for COVID, variables exist that make some tests more accurate than others, while others are more accessible.

Not only does testing help us identify potential spread in a given community, but we learn more about the virus and how it spreads when testing is widely available and practiced. As different tests have become available—from the aforementioned PCR, to rapid antigen tests—the general public has had valid questions about accuracy.

Why are some tests more accurate than others? The answer can be related to the type of test administered, when the test was conducted, what stage the virus was at during the time of testing, and potential human error. Once a sample is collected, it requires laboratory analysis where a PCR machine identifies viral genetic material, duplicates the SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, and a positive result is identified when a certain fluorescent light is produced by ample amounts of the COVID genetic material.

Or that the PCR cycles have been sped up and are therefore unreliable. How reliable is PCR testing? PCR was first invented in and is a well-established, common, standard laboratory practice for molecular biology, genetics and medical diagnostics.

Occasionally, false negatives or positives will arise. Regardless, the rates are extremely low and usually happen because of a low quality or old sample — the problem is the sample collection, rather than the test itself. Thankfully, it is usually easy to flag which results might be a false negative because low quality samples are visible to experts, and they are able to retest the sample.

The test is also very sensitive and only needs tiny volumes of sample, such as what is on a swab, where other techniques need a higher volume eg blood. It is also a relatively quick test.

It only takes a couple of hours to run, and multiple samples can be run together. T and keeps doubling them until they have enough genetic material to identify.

Most labs go up to 38 to 40 cycles which is an amplification of 1 trillion times. Is that too much amplification? Genuinely sick people get a positive test after 6 cycles 64 amplifications because they have a high viral load.

   

 

A guide to COVID tests for the public.

 

True crime series like Serial and Making a Murderer invite us to sharpen our abilities and to outperform the detectives assigned to the case in figuring out what really happened.

As the COVID pandemic raged on, some people decided that the disease was nowhere near as severe as we had been told and looked for ways to discredit public health efforts. One of their alleged smoking guns? The Ct values were apparently too high and the test was spitting out random noise. None of this is true. In my laboratory days, I did countless PCRs, and I want to explain what a PCR is, what those Ct values are and what they mean, and why the scientists interpreting these tests actually know what they is pcr testing reliable читать далее. What will happen in the lab is that everything between these two phrases or is pcr testing reliable will get amplified: copies will be made.

This sentence will be copied over and over and over again in a process known as PCR or the polymerase chain reaction, named after the enzyme that does the copying. PCR is a workhorse in molecular biology laboratories. It is used to detect infectious microorganisms; to see if a patient has a certain disease-causing mutation in their DNA; and to compare a specimen found at a crime scene with samples in a database or with the DNA of a suspect.

It functions by amplifying a specific part of the genetic material so many times that it becomes detectable. But when it comes to detecting the coronavirus, time is of the essence, so the type of PCR that is used is called a real-time PCR assay, and it contains an additional twist: detecting these copied sentences is done as they are being copied.

After one cycle of amplification, we now have two. After a second cycle, we have four. How to connect zoom app to laptop - zoom app from mobile to laptop 8, 16, 32, 64, copies.

The number of copies increases exponentially because each copy becomes a template for the next round of amplification. Is pcr testing reliable to this probe is a fluorescent molecule that, when excited by a laser, emits light like a distress beacon. What happens to this light as the probe is allowed to bind 8 copies of the phrase, then 16, then 32? Is pcr testing reliable and more light gets detected. So this real-time PCR test has a limit of detection.

When there is a lot of virus present, the answer it gives is pretty unequivocal. Some people claim that the coronavirus PCR test is run for too many cycles and is thus mostly unreliable. They are asking for a thing called the Ct value to be disclosed for each test so they can judge for themselves if the test is accurate or not. There is a grain of truth to the allegation but, as you will see, not much more. This infamous Ct value, or cycle threshold, is pretty simple.

It is the number of cycles of amplification needed to get enough light. In our fictional example above, we amplify the sentence once and get two copies: a tiny bit of light is emitted and is pcr testing reliable.

With another cycle, we is pcr testing reliable four copies: more light. The Ct value will be When the Ct value is low, it means that there was a lot of starting material many pages with the sentence we were interested in, or many copies is pcr testing reliable the посмотреть больше. When the Ct value is high, it means there was little starting material, so it takes more time to have enough copies so that you can see them. The danger when seeing high Ct values e.

Holmes, it could be amplifying a somewhat similar sentence from a different story. The Ct value is, in a way, relative. Unsurprisingly, when 26 Ontario laboratories that test for the coronavirus participated in a proficiency test, they saw a variability of Ct values of up to eight cycles is pcr testing reliable them when testing the same specimen.

Samples that are known to be positive and negative for the coronavirus are run alongside the unknown samples, and their behaviour during the run also affects interpretation of the results.

This is why reporting the Ct value is not recommended in Canada: on its own, it does not mean much. Many families have their own recipe. PCR tests come in many different flavours, but as long as they are validated by using a known quantity of virus, diluting it many times and running these samples to see what Ct values they generatethey are reliable.

They are not perfect, because no test is perfect, but they are absolutely not the futile garbage some folks on the Internet would have you believe. The pandemic saw a rise in armchair experts, people who had never stepped foot in a laboratory suddenly learning about PCR is pcr testing reliable thinking, as in true crime dramas, that they had cracked is pcr testing reliable case wide open.

The /4452.txt reliance on Ct values unfortunately shows a misunderstanding of the complexities of molecular diagnostics. Ct values are not elementary; they require expertise to interpret. Take-home message: - Some people claim, wrongly, that the PCR test for the coronavirus is useless because the so-called Ct values are is pcr testing reliable high and the test is picking up things that are not the coronavirus - The PCR tests for the coronavirus that have been internally validated by public health agencies are actually very reliable - Scientists cannot declare any result above a certain Ct value to be unreliable because Ct values are somewhat relative and must be interpreted by taking into account a variety of factors.

Leave a comment! Enter your keywords. Sign-Up Here. Jonathan Jarry M. Critical Thinking. Ct values are not elementary This infamous Ct value, or cycle threshold, is pretty simple. Take-home message: - Some people claim, wrongly, that the PCR test for the coronavirus is useless because the so-called Ct values are too high and the test is picking up things that are not the coronavirus - The PCR tests for the coronavirus that have been internally validated by public health agencies are actually very reliable - Scientists cannot declare any result above a certain Ct value to be unreliable because Ct values are somewhat relative and must be interpreted by taking into account a variety of factors CrackedScience Leave a comment!

Photo credit: James Gathany. Ct is pcr testing reliable. PCR test. Steve Kirsch and is pcr testing reliable Seduction of Simplicity 20 May Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram. Accessibility Log in.

 

How Accurate Are COVID PCR Tests? - BioCollections.FAQ: Testing for COVID | MIT Medical

 

PCR tests doubles the fragments called 'cycle thresholds C. T and keeps doubling them until they have enough genetic material to identify. Most labs go up to 38 to 40 cycles which is an amplification of 1 trillion times.

Is that too much amplification? Genuinely sick people get a positive test after 6 cycles 64 amplifications because they have a high viral load. This is not true, as has been covered already. Is this test FDA-approved or cleared? The PCR test standard was used for the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. However, this undermines all of the math in all of the tests discussed so far. How do we know the use of PCR testing at cycles was known by authorities to be fraudulent?

Because now that the vaccine program has been rolled out the vaccinated are only given PCR tests at a reasonable 28 cycles, while the unvaccinated continue to be subjected to the fraudulent cycle PCR testing.

This of course deceptively insures that the unvaccinated continue to generate completely asymptomatic false positives, and can then be made to appear to be driving the spread of the illness.

Meanwhile the vaccinated are much less likely to test positive given their testing is now, indefensible by any scientific measure, conducted at the lower 28 cycle threshold when compared to the unvaccinated conducted at cycles. Yes, so that could explain any difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. So both this test, and all other tests, including the tests submitted by Pfizer and Moderna and others to obtain emergency use authorization are now invalid. None of the math I went through makes any difference as the PCR tests were never legitimate.

Covid is not the first time the PCR tests created a number of false positives. The following occurred back in For months, nearly everyone involved thought the medical center had had a huge whooping cough outbreak, with extensive ramifications. Nearly 1, health care workers at the hospital in Lebanon, N. Herndon, were told they appeared to have the disease; and thousands were given antibiotics and a vaccine for protection. Hospital beds were taken out of commission, including some in intensive care.

Then, about eight months later, health care workers were dumbfounded to receive an e-mail message from the hospital administration informing them that the whole thing was a false alarm. Not a single case of whooping cough was confirmed with the definitive test, growing the bacterium, Bordetella pertussis, in the laboratory. Instead, it appears the health care workers probably were afflicted with ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold. Now, as they look back on the episode, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists say the problem was that they placed too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test that led them astray.

At Dartmouth the decision was to use a test, P. It is a molecular test that, until recently, was confined to molecular biology laboratories. Kathryn Edwards, an infectious disease specialist and professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. We are trying to figure out how to use methods that have been the purview of bench scientists. So even though the PCR tests failed in the field rather than a controlled and sterile lab environment and created a faux mini pandemic, they were introduced and accepted to test covid, where they failed once again.

Curiously I found another article linked to the above article in the New York Times which carried ridiculous and false information about the PCR tests and proposed an even less accurate test be used. During this pandemic, that has meant relying heavily on PCR testing, an extremely accurate but time- and labor-intensive method that requires samples to be processed at laboratories.

As we have established, the PCR test may be time and labor intensive, but it is not accurate, much less extremely accurate. But as the virus continues its rampage across the country and tests remain in short supply in many regions, researchers and public health experts have grown increasingly vocal about revising this long-held credo.

This is amazing. It means that many people had no idea the PCR tests were incredibly inaccurate. Outside of rolling dice or tarrot cards, there is no test less accurate than a PCR test. Health System. It is a catastrophe.

Again this is another microbiologist who has no idea PCR tests are not effective tests. There is really no excuse for this ignorance by a person who works in the field. And these tests are still relatively scarce nationwide. Government officials have pledged to astronomically scale up the number of point-of-care tests by fall, increasing by millions the weekly tally of tests conducted.

The entire covid pandemic was driven by the faulty PCR test, and that generated the majority of its results as false positives. However, this is all based upon the belief in a test that never worked. A better option, Dr. Mina said, might be antigen testing, which identifies pieces of protein. Two such tests, made by BD and Quidel, have received emergency authorization from the F. According to Dr. Angelova this test does not work for covid.

And It was not broadly adopted. Daily testing? This shows the insanity of pandemic thinking. Furthermore, all of these topics might be of interest, but none of this ever happened. Concerns over accuracy bogged down the approval process for simple, speedy tests.

That should not be difficult. Butler-Wu said. Katherine J. Wu is a reporter covering science and health. She holds a Ph. Well, none of that did any good. This article is filled with false assumptions and nowhere does this reporter use her domain expertise to check on these assumptions. In addition to all of these problems, the CDC has the following problems in rolling out the tests.

The faulty coronavirus testing kits developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the early weeks of the pandemic were not only contaminated but had a basic design flaw, according to an internal review by the agency. Health officials had already acknowledged that the test kits were contaminated, but the internal report, whose findings were published in PLOS ONE on Wednesday, also documented a design error that caused false positives.

Benjamin Pinsky, the director of clinical virology for Stanford Health Care. What is curious is that while this document was published in May , many months later, we are still using antibody tests. It only detects antibodies against the virus [2]. Simply amazing. But not surprising. This raises several serious questions.

And the answer to that question is obvious. If the FDA did develop such a test, then—in terms of conventional vaccine theory—it would be easy to see how well the vaccine is working, or not working. And THAT is not a goal public health officials want to achieve. That is not a risk worth taking. Suppose, after testing 20, vaccinated people, it turns out that only have produced antibodies against the spike protein? This latest foray shows the FDA is both criminal and insane.

There is no evidence that the PCR test ever worked. Skip to content. These tests were never reliable. Our References for This Article If you want to see our references for this article and related Brightwork articles, visit this link. Go to top. It is also a relatively quick test.

It only takes a couple of hours to run, and multiple samples can be run together. The speed, ease, sensitivity, and accuracy of PCR is very fine-tuned, and is therefore an unshakeable standard in the world of molecular biology. It has been used for decades and will continue to be used for decades to come. The following gel electrophoresis technique is used in laboratory analysis. When a PCR process is completed in laboratory analysis, it is often visualised through a technique called gel electrophoresis, which looks like this:.

At the top, there are numbers that denote different samples. In the middle, the white lines show different samples after PCR; we can compare the location of that piece of DNA to the ladder and estimate the size of the DNA fragment.

Each of these has a specific temperature and time it needs to run, and will affect how reliable the final PCR result is. The last stage is the most flexible because it depends directly on the length of the DNA fragment you are trying to read. Think of it like a cake: a big cake needs more time in the oven.

This means the final PCR can sometimes show the wrong result if the timing is wrong and the fragment is thus smaller than expected.