https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/05/study-raises-doubts-about-rapid-covid-tests-reliability-in-early-days-after-infection/
A new study raises significant doubts about whether at-home rapid antigen tests can detect the Omicron variant before infected people can transmit the virus to others.
The study looks at 30 people from settings including Broadway theaters and offices in New York and San Francisco where some workers were not only being tested daily but were, because of rules at their workplaces, receiving both the antigen tests and a daily test that used the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which is believed to be more reliable.
On days 0 and 1 following a positive PCR test, all of the antigen tests used produced false-negative results, even though in 28 of the 30 cases, levels of virus detected by the PCR test were high enough to infect other people. In four cases, researchers were able to confirm that infected people transmitted the virus to others during the period before they had a positive result on the rapid antigen test...
5 comments:
Dr. Nass,
This is a ridiculous article, that seems to really be controlled opposition. As I'm sure you know, the PCR has been completely discredited as a diagnostic tool. But the issue here is the article faults the antigen tests "on days 0 and 1" for failing to register a positive, AND using a compare against the PCR test that will report virtually anything as a "positive" test.
As the CDC reported, the PCR cannot distinguish between the common cold, a flu, a bad hair day, and COVID. So the premise of the article is completely designed to mislead your readers.
Further, there are now reports that Omicron seems to, in almost every case, mysteriously arrive immediately after anyone receives a booster shot. And Pfizer has reported it's ready to issue a new "3 dose Omicron vaccine" by March 2022.
So there is strong evidence that Omicron is being distributed via the existing booster, to set up the next wave of "vaccines" to keep people topped up with the required graphene oxide for Phase 2 of the Gates/Fauci program.
So the PCR tests -- which have been thoroughly debunked as notoriously flawed -- are considered to be even *more* reliable than the rapid antigen test? WTF is the point of any of this testing? Apologies for my language, Dr. Nass.
How do they know virus levels were high enough to infect others? My understanding of PCR is it can only detect a fragment of the viral genome depending on CT. It doesn't tell you how much you have. I assume the antigen test is similar??
The last time I looked there were about 250 authorized PCR tests and dozens of authorized rapid tests. They have different platforms, hardware, reagents, probes, cycle thresholds, etc. So be wary of generalizing.
That said, I will now generalize. The PCR tests, in general, are more sensitive than the rapid tests, which means they pick up cases before and after (during the illness) the rapid tests do. The rapid tests are less sensitive and they have not been proven to be a good surrogate for infectivity, so they should not be used that way--as this article points out.
Theoretically, the PCR tests with high cycle thresholds were expected to pick up mostly false postives, as confirmed by an article in the August 2020 NYT by Apoorva Mandavilli.
Today is not summer 2020 and we do not know how these tests are being run and what cycle thresholds or other parameters they are using today. I have been pleasantly surprised that they mainly seem to give the right answers in my patients. So something improved.
The way the article proved transmission was by track and trace. When this is done perfectly, the 2 viruses are sequenced and shown to be the identical strain. I don't know whether that was done.
In terms of omicron occurring right after boosters, I had not heard that, but there is evolving evidence from several countries of possible negative efficacy after about 3 months from an inoculation. And there was Israeli data I blogged about long ago that showed negative efficacy against COVID for 15 days after a Pfizer shot.
Tap Water Tests Positive for Covid19?
https://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=N5hNhHUGI-o&start=
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