Re: Strawman
That certainly isn't true for me. The first page of search results I get are from the BMJ, health.harvard.edu, the Lancet, cochrane.org, fullfact.org and the UK and Scottish goverments. With the possible exception of the last two :-) none of them are known for conspiracy theories or antivax bullshit.
But are you any wiser as to why a PCR test showed different results? Luckily we have 'fact checkers'-
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/01/scicheck-viral-posts-distort-who-guidance-on-covid-19-tests/
A recent memo from the World Health Organization designed for lab professionals became a major focus of misinformation — with unreliable websites and social media users claiming the agency had changed a testing protocol and admitted that COVID-19 cases have been wildly inflated.
But neither of those claims is accurate.
So obviously the person is both positive and negative. And out of pocket for a couple of tests. And negative tests are now becoming a thing in order to travel across borders. Or get a fancy Covid passport because you've tested negative, or been vaccinated.
But 'fact check' helpfully links to the WHO memo that helped spark the controversy-
https://www.who.int/news/item/20-01-2021-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users-2020-05
WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.
And factcheck interprets that as a memo to RTFM, and does a bit of a gish-gallop around the issues. Which is another rabbit hole. So the media has spent the last year confusing people, and running daily killcounts, or 'case' counts. A 'case' is a positive test result, rather than a sick person, which is the more normal definition. So with contradictory results, the person's confused. Or possibly in trouble if a positive result means mandatory isolation and they risk large fines for breaking quarantine. Or messes up data if it's a false positive. But the issue is this-
The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load
So the more cycles, the more sensitive the test. Or a positive result with fewer cycles would indicate a high viral load. Which would also tend to indicate the person is infected/infectious. But run a high Ct and you'll get more positive results, but may indicate a low, or very low viral load, which may just mean someone's been exposed to the virus, but not infected/infectious. 'factcheck' rather glosses over that point, and is arguably misinformation.
It also doesn't mention other legitimate concerns, or dismisses them out of hand. So one issue is that apparently test results aren't returned with the Ct value used, so don't really give any indication of potential viral load. But we know that Covid is both highly contagious, and relatively low risk in most of the population. So someone may have had a bit of a cold, recovered, later been tested and then forced to quarantine simply because they've got remnants of Covid RNA, but aren't a 'case' by conventional definition.
But such is politics. Factcheck somehow gets promoted in search results, even though they're providing misinformation and conspiracy theories. But to understand the debate, you'd have to do some homework to understand how PCR testing works, and the implications of using a high Ct when that's a well-known risk to generating false positives.
Which really leaves the question of how to get people to understand that 'fact checking' sites may be mistaken.. Which is a bit like wiki. They're not reliable sources, although can be a handy place to get some background information-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#Limitations
