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Originally Posted by MahomesMagic
If you actually read the article you would understand, its perfectly clear.
The authors point was that we get a yes or no answer but that the calibration of the test is such that we are vastly overstating cases based on too sensitive PCR tests. If we tested at 30 cycles or so many of these "cases" disappear.
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I have read it, obviously, since I posted that the PCR test is yes/no, despite you claiming that it doesn't provide that. I see that you now acknowledge that it does. Glad we cleared that up.
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.
The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.
This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients, although it could tell them how infectious the patients are.
In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.
So, yes/no isn't good enough to determine how contagious an infected person is. I agree, and again, I'm not arguing about contagiousness. But a positive is still a case, even if the viral load is low.