Understanding PCR Tests for Coronavirus

by Joseph Mercola, DO |
Published November 30, 2020 | Health, Infections

Opinion | From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the clarion call has been to test, test and test some more. However, right from the start, serious questions arose about the tests being used to diagnose this infection, and questions have only multiplied since then.

Positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests have been used as the justification for keeping large portions of the world locked down for the better part of 2020.

This, despite the fact that PCR tests have proven remarkably unreliable with high false result rates, and aren’t designed to be used as a diagnostic tool in the first place as they cannot distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones.

Dr. Mike Yeadon, former vice president and scientific director of Pfizer, has even gone on record stating1 that false positive results from unreliable PCR tests are being used to “manufacture a ‘second wave’ based on ‘new cases,’” when in fact a second wave is highly unlikely.

Before his death, the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, repeatedly yet unsuccessfully stressed that this test should not be used as a diagnostic tool for the simple reason that it’s incapable of diagnosing disease. A positive test does not actually mean that an active infection is present. As noted in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication on coronavirus and PCR testing dated July 13 2020:2

Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.
The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection.
This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.
So, what does the PCR test actually tell us? The PCR swab collects RNA from your nasal cavity. This RNA is then reverse transcribed into DNA. However, the genetic snippets are so small they must be amplified in order to become discernible. Each round of amplification is called a cycle.

Amplification over 35 cycles is considered unreliable and scientifically unjustified, yet Drosten tests and tests recommended by the World Health Organization are set to 45 cycles.

What this does is amplify any, even insignificant sequences of viral DNA that might be present to the point that the test reads “positive,” even if the viral load is extremely low or the virus is inactive. As a result of these excessive cycle thresholds, you end up with a far higher number of positive tests than you would otherwise.

We’ve also had problems with faulty and contaminated tests. As soon as the genetic sequence for SARS-CoV-2 became available in January 2020, German researchers quickly developed a PCR test for the virus.

In March 2020, The New York Times3 reported the initial test kits developed by the CDC had been found to be flawed. The Verge also reported4 that this flawed CDC test in turn became the basis for the WHO’s test, which the CDC ended up refusing to use.

PCR Tests Cannot Detect Infection
Perhaps most importantly of all, the PCR tests cannot distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones. What that means is that PCR tests cannot detect infection. Period. It cannot tell you whether you’re currently ill, whether you’ll develop symptoms in the near future, or whether you’re contagious.

The tests may pick up dead debris or inactive viral particles that pose no risk whatsoever to the patient and others. What’s more, the test can pick up the presence of other coronaviruses, so a positive result may simply indicate that you’ve recuperated from a common cold in the past.

An “infection” is when a virus penetrates into a cell and replicates. As the virus multiplies, symptoms set in. A person is only infectious if the virus is actually replicating. As long as the virus is inactive and not replicating, it’s completely harmless both to the host and others.

Chances are, if you have no symptoms, a positive test simply means it has detected inactive viral DNA in your body. This would also mean that you are not contagious and pose no risk to anyone.

For all of these reasons, a number of highly respected scientists around the world are now saying that what we have is not a COVID-19 pandemic but a PCR test pandemic. In his Sept. 20, 2020, article5 “Lies, Damned Lies and Health Statistics—The Deadly Danger of False Positives,” Yeadon explains why basing our pandemic response on positive PCR tests is so problematic.

In short, it appears millions of people are simply being found to carry inactive viral DNA that pose no risk to anyone, yet these test results are being used by the global technocracy to implement a brand new economic and social system based on draconian surveillance and totalitarian controls.

Artificially Created Justifications for Totalitarian Controls
As reported by The Vaccine Reaction, Sept. 29, 2020:6

The test’s threshold is so high that it detects people with the live virus as well as those with a few genetic fragments left over from a past infection that no longer poses a risk. It’s like finding a hair in a room after a person left it, says Michael Mina, MD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.7
In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90% of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The New York Times found8 …
‘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’ or ‘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.
Again, medical experts agree any cycle threshold over 35 cycles makes the test too sensitive, as at that point it starts picking up harmless inactive DNA fragments. Mina believes a more reasonable cutoff would be 30 or less.

According to The New York Times,9 the CDC’s own calculations show it’s extremely unlikely to detect live viruses in samples that have gone through more than 33 cycles, and research10 published in April 2020 concluded patients with positive PCR tests that had a cycle threshold above 33 were not contagious and could safely be discharged from the hospital or home isolation.

Importantly, when officials at the New York state laboratory, the Wadsworth Center, reanalyzed testing data at The Times’ request, they found that changing the threshold from 40 cycles to 35 cycles eliminated about 43 percent of the positive results. Limiting it to 30 cycles eliminated a whopping 63 percent.11 The Vaccine Reaction adds:12

In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90% of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. ‘I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,’ he said.
‘I’m really shocked that it could be that high—the proportion of people with high CT value results,’ said Ashish Jha, MD, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. ‘Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing’13 …
In late August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first rapid coronavirus test that doesn’t need any special computer equipment. Made by Abbot Laboratories, the 15-minute test [BinaxNOW] will sell for U.S. $5 but still requires a nasal swab to be taken by a health worker.14
The Abbot test is the fourth rapid point-of-care test that looks for the presence of antigens rather than the virus’s genetic code as the PCR molecular tests do.15
Massive Waste of Resources
As noted by Dr. Tom Jefferson and professor Carl Henegan in an October 31, 2020, article in the Daily Mail,16 mass PCR testing has been a massive waste or resources, as it doesn’t provide us with the information we actually need to know—who’s infectious, how far is the virus spreading and how fast does it spread?

Instead, it has led to economic devastation from business shutdowns and isolating noninfectious people in their homes for weeks and months on end. Jefferson and Henegan claim they shared their pandemic response plan with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over a month ago, and just presented it to him again. “We urge him to pay attention and embrace it,” they write, adding:

There are only two things about which we can be certain: first, that lockdowns do not work in the long term … The idea that a month of economic hardship will permit some sort of ‘reset’, allowing us a brighter future, is a myth. What, when it ends, do we think will happen? Meanwhile, ever-increasing restrictions will destroy lives and livelihoods.
The second certainty is this: that we need to find a way out of the mess that does no more damage than the virus itself … Our strategy would be to tackle the four key failings.
These four areas are:

Addressing the problems in the government’s mass testing program
Addressing “the blight of confused and contradictory statistics”
Protect and isolate the vulnerable—primarily the elderly, but also hospitalized patients in general and staff—while allowing the rest to maintain “some semblance of normal life”
Inform the public about the true and quantifiable costs of lockdown that “kill people just as surely as COVID-19”
“If we do these things, there is real hope that we can learn to live with the virus. That, after all, was supposed to be the plan,” Jefferson and Henegan note. With regard to testing, the pair call “for a national program of testing quality control to ensure that results are accurate, precise and consistent.”

Importantly, we must not rely on positive/negative readings alone. The results must be assessed in relation to other factors, such as the age of the subject and whether they are symptomatic, to determine who actually poses an infectious risk. You can review the full details of their proposed plan at the end of their Daily Mail article.17

This article was reprinted with the author’s permission. It was originally published on Dr. Mercola’s website at www.mercola.com.

Note: This commentary provides referenced information and perspective on a topic related to vaccine science, policy, law or ethics being discussed in public forums and by U.S. lawmakers.  The websites of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provide information and perspective of federal agencies responsible for vaccine research, development, regulation and policymaking.

References:

1 The Huntingtonian October 6, 2020.
2 CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel July 13, 2020 (PDF).
3 New York Times, March 20, 2020.
4 The Verge, March 17, 2020, Current Gold Standards.
5 Lockdownskeptics September 20, 2020.
6 The Vaccine Reaction September 29, 2020.
7 Daily Mail August 30, 2020.
8 The New York Times August 29, 2020.
9 Ibid.
10 Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases April 27, 2020; 39(6): 1059-1061.
11 See Footnote 6.
12 Ibid.
13 See Footnote 8.
14 Abbott Press Release August 26, 2020.
15 Business Insider September 21, 2020.
16 Daily Mail October 31, 2020.
17 Ibid.