Reconsideration of the significance of a "positive test" and testing in general

To rethink what a "positive test" means and to rethink using the PCR testing to guide us in this pandemic.
Many experts are critical of the use of the test (Prof Carl Heneghan of Oxford for one)

Why the contribution is important

The PCR test is not suitable for what it is being used for. This is because of the following reasons.

1. It cannot tell if someone has active infection.
2. It can pick up debris from historical infection, months ago.
3. It is not 100% specific and therefore could be picking up common or garden coronavirus (which are abundant). It could even be picking up human RNA from the body.
4. It has a false positive rate of somewhere between 0.8% and 4.3%. Applying this to hundreds of thousands of tests will yield tens of thousands of false positives (likely explaining many "cases" in which people have no symptoms.

The expense of mass PCR testing is enormous. The burden it is putting on the health service is vast. The results of tests are highly questionable. The numbers published in the media are fuelling the fear of this virus.

Of note, influenza deaths have been higher than COVID19 deaths since June. Yet we are not testing people in the same way, tracing their contacts or imposing isolation measures on them. Yet, COVID19 and Influenza are extremely similar in their lethality and transmission.

by doc40hz on October 06, 2020 at 12:53PM

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Average rating: 4.5
Based on: 21 votes

Comments

  • Posted by kjarva October 06, 2020 at 14:59

    That's pretty disturbing that this absolute violation of our human rights is happening due to guff data.

  • Posted by natlb October 06, 2020 at 15:36

    It's ludicrous that these undemocratic and over-bearing government restrictions that are presently being imposed on us are seemingly due to the inflated number of 'cases' from supposedly positive flawed PCR tests.

  • Posted by scoatiousdee October 06, 2020 at 16:54

    Totally agree. They fudged it back in March with false information based on computer data. I would draw into question the validity of a lot of things, especially where there is large amounts of money invested in the outcome.

  • Posted by Libdah October 07, 2020 at 12:06

    Scientists can't agree, so what's the hope? Why test people who are not feeling ill?
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