Yep, and just because it shows up positive at some high Ct does not mean there were 'live' viruses detected, it just means there were some RNA fragments present in the original sample. In the end, we don't have a damn clue how many people have actually had Covid. PCR testing with high cycle thresholds produced lots of false positives in people who had regular clods or the flu, but I'm sure there were also plenty of people who had mild cases, who never bothered to get tested.
Fortunately many tests are multiplex assays meaning they're checking for more than 1 gene so that helps to exclude false positives from other possible pathogens. It is a serious issue when this is being touted as a gold standard measure for someone being infected when there are many variables. It's even more egregious now that many vaccinated people, who are still infectious but may show mild symptoms, are not being tested and may mistake mild symptoms for allergies.
It really points to the flaw of our testing protocols but like I said it does not seem like much is really changing to remedy that.
Yeah, positive PCR tests should have been followed up a month later with an antibody test, because the combination of those two would be pretty good confirmation that someone actually had this virus, but then people would have figured out that that there were a lot of false positives, and that the case counts were BS. I suspect this is also why the FDA won't allow antibody tests to be sold OTC to the general public.
Antibody tests generally will require blood to be drawn so it may be difficult at home. However, seroprevalence would indicate far many more people would have antibodies and thus the need for such a high vaccination rate would not be necessary. Ironically, I wonder if massive antibody tests are not being conducted in nursing homes over the concern they may find out that this group may have a large number of waning immunity. The entire situation is highly complex and nuanced and the overly simplistic approaches people have been taken have done us no good.
Sure, if you want quantitative antibody titers, you need to have blood drawn and send it to a lab. But a simple linear flow test that only requires a single drop of blood from a finger prick would be sufficient for a "Yes/No" result showing whether the person really had Covid, or whether his PCR test was a false positive.
So maybe extremely stringent EUA procedures may mean that many of these tests are not allowed to be used if they were not evaluated for the fingerstick method. Like I said it seemed like the best options would be to deploy antibody tests in nursing homes and hospital settings which begs the question of why they may not be doing so.
Thank you! I really do appreciate it. I used to work as a lab technician at a University. I have no graduate degree but I do love to learn and try to piece things together. Many of these pieces have been things I've been frustrated with over the course of the pandemic and wanted to write about things that I think people would either be interested and help them gain some understanding of what is going on.
I am always open for criticisms so if I get anything wrong I'll always welcome critiques!
So you worked directly with patient samples? As in, you were the guy I would have been sending patient specimens to if I were working in that hospital?
So my job was a little interesting. I did deal with collected samples but it was more of a molecular biology lab/sequencing. We were part of a project with the federal government and received a majority of our funding from there. When COVID hit we were asked to start doing COVID testing. I apologize for being a bit vague with my position.
Yep, and just because it shows up positive at some high Ct does not mean there were 'live' viruses detected, it just means there were some RNA fragments present in the original sample. In the end, we don't have a damn clue how many people have actually had Covid. PCR testing with high cycle thresholds produced lots of false positives in people who had regular clods or the flu, but I'm sure there were also plenty of people who had mild cases, who never bothered to get tested.
I wrote about the cold/flu issue in this Substack piece:
https://moderndiscontent.substack.com/p/answers-from-an-ex-covid-tester-can
Fortunately many tests are multiplex assays meaning they're checking for more than 1 gene so that helps to exclude false positives from other possible pathogens. It is a serious issue when this is being touted as a gold standard measure for someone being infected when there are many variables. It's even more egregious now that many vaccinated people, who are still infectious but may show mild symptoms, are not being tested and may mistake mild symptoms for allergies.
It really points to the flaw of our testing protocols but like I said it does not seem like much is really changing to remedy that.
Yeah, positive PCR tests should have been followed up a month later with an antibody test, because the combination of those two would be pretty good confirmation that someone actually had this virus, but then people would have figured out that that there were a lot of false positives, and that the case counts were BS. I suspect this is also why the FDA won't allow antibody tests to be sold OTC to the general public.
Antibody tests generally will require blood to be drawn so it may be difficult at home. However, seroprevalence would indicate far many more people would have antibodies and thus the need for such a high vaccination rate would not be necessary. Ironically, I wonder if massive antibody tests are not being conducted in nursing homes over the concern they may find out that this group may have a large number of waning immunity. The entire situation is highly complex and nuanced and the overly simplistic approaches people have been taken have done us no good.
Sure, if you want quantitative antibody titers, you need to have blood drawn and send it to a lab. But a simple linear flow test that only requires a single drop of blood from a finger prick would be sufficient for a "Yes/No" result showing whether the person really had Covid, or whether his PCR test was a false positive.
You are correct. Here's a fingerstick method for IgG/IgM qualitative measures: https://www.fda.gov/media/138660/download
However this one says that it is not intended for the fingerstick method: https://www.fda.gov/media/138438/download
So maybe extremely stringent EUA procedures may mean that many of these tests are not allowed to be used if they were not evaluated for the fingerstick method. Like I said it seemed like the best options would be to deploy antibody tests in nursing homes and hospital settings which begs the question of why they may not be doing so.
My understanding is that now with the Omicron variant, the S part of the test is now missing.
I was told that this is how the "authorities" know that Omicron is prevalent.
If the PCR test hasn't been adjusted, are they only looking for 2 confirming results?
This seems an easy way to make loads more positives?
What's your background? Were you working in a university lab? Were you doing research? Your articles are fascinating - please keep writing.
Thank you! I really do appreciate it. I used to work as a lab technician at a University. I have no graduate degree but I do love to learn and try to piece things together. Many of these pieces have been things I've been frustrated with over the course of the pandemic and wanted to write about things that I think people would either be interested and help them gain some understanding of what is going on.
I am always open for criticisms so if I get anything wrong I'll always welcome critiques!
So you worked directly with patient samples? As in, you were the guy I would have been sending patient specimens to if I were working in that hospital?
So my job was a little interesting. I did deal with collected samples but it was more of a molecular biology lab/sequencing. We were part of a project with the federal government and received a majority of our funding from there. When COVID hit we were asked to start doing COVID testing. I apologize for being a bit vague with my position.