CORONAVIRUS TESTING: 90% of positive cases with coronavirus are not sick
In a PCR test fo the coronavirus Covid-19,, there is a very important factor which is not mentioned in the results, it is the TC ( Threshold Cycle ). This is the DNA amplification coefficient, the number of amplification cycles.
The test does not detect whole viruses in working order, but pieces of this virus, whether active or not. So it can detect small pieces of the virus from an infection that is several weeks old or even older.
In the samples, there are very, very few pieces of viral RNA, so they cannot be detected as they are. You have to increase the number of pieces very significantly to be able to detect them.
This viral RNA is transformed into DNA and then a product is used which causes all the DNA in the sample to be duplicated many times. This operation is repeated several times.
The more we repeat it, the more we amplify their number, the greater the TC, the greater the risk of having false positives.
The less we repeat it, the less we have false positives, but the more we can have false negatives.
Depending on the devices and the laboratories, we can go to more or less large CT values from 20 to 45!
TC = 20 to 30 => high viral load, presence of a number of copies of te coronavirus virus compatible with an infection, to be interpreted according to the clinic. There remains the risk of measurement error.
TC = 35 => compromise used by the IHU, but false positives.
TC = 40 or more => 90% FALSE positives = no Coronavirus Covid-19 virus, the remaining 10% have an extremely low viral load, we are NOT contagious (but there are no false negatives).
Scientists’ recommendations are a TC between 20 and 30. In the practice of analytical laboratories, the TC is most often 40 or more!
If your test is positive, demand to know the TC and do another test the next day to confirm.
These PCR tests with TC limited to 25 would have been very useful in February or March 2020 to isolate true positives with a high viral load and hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin + zinc (HCQ + AZT + Zinc) treatment.
So from a medical point of view, since the beginning of June, PCRs are no longer of any interest EXCEPT if the TC is restricted to a maximum of 30. They are only valid in this case.
Doctor Peter EL BAZE is a former Attached Doctor of the Hospitals of the CHU de Nice, Former Head of the Internal Medicine Department A1, Les Sources in Nice & Creator of the medical software Megabaze and Oncobaze (chemotherapy).