Corona Virus Tests Have Lots of False/Positives

On August 29th the New York Times ran a post called "Your Corona Virus Test Is Positive, Maybe It Shouldn't Be" The whole crux of the article is about the sensitivity of the nose swab test. When this test is sent to the lab, it is the lab's protocols on how many cycles they do of the test for it to be deemed positive or negative. The nose swab test is called the PCR test and it provides a yes or no answer to the physician on whether you have the Corona Virus.

What doctors and researchers are now miffed about is why they don't know the number of cycles the test went through which determines the viral load. Many labs put the test through 40 cycles to identify the virus. By doing that, many people who are diagnosed as having the virus may have remnants of an old virus, or a very small amounts of the Corona Virus and which may never amount to any symptoms. Yet, this is being counted in statistics. Many doctors feel the test cycles should be set to 30 or 35 and the viral load information should be sent to physicians.

According to Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health said:

“We’ve been using one type of data for everything, and that is just plus or minus — that’s all,” Dr. Mina said. “We’re using that for clinical diagnostics, for public health, for policy decision-making.”

But yes-no isn’t good enough, he added. It’s the amount of virus that should dictate the infected patient’s next steps. “It’s really irresponsible, I think, to forgo the recognition that this is a quantitative issue,” Dr. Mina said. 

According to a review by the New York Times, in three sets of data analyzed in the states of Nevada, Massachusetts, and New York, according to state officials up to 90% of people tested carried barely any virus.  This should give us all pause, because the numbers being touted by the media, can be up to 90% off. As a result of this article, doctors and researchers are suggesting we should be using the rapid test. While this test is more sensitive, and some people with the virus may not be identified, it would identify those with a high virus load.

Please reach out to Health Advocate Experts if you need any assistance.

To your health!!!!!