The articles don’t say the RT-PCR test gives you a false positive. The articles (the townhall article is just a recap of the NYT article) simply point out that the RT-PCR test will give a positive result when there aren’t a lot of virions present in the person’s system or when the genetic material isn’t from active virions.
There was no claim made that the testing was incorrect. The tests did precisely what they were designed to do: identify whether there was SARS-CoV-2 genetic material present at the collection site. It does that.
The issue is that the RT-PCR test does not provide a metric for the amount of active virus present within the body. Nobody even claimed it would do so. It’s a limitation of the test. If you want a test that both accurately determines the presence and the amount of active SARS-CoV-2 virions within a person’s body, please design one. I’m sure the medical community would love to have one. Nobody in the world has been able to do so yet. You’ll be a billionaire.
“Live Virus Unlikely in Tests Using CT Above 24
According to The New York Times,10 researchers have been “unable to grow the coronavirus out of samples from volunteers whose PCR tests had CT values above 27,” and if the virus cannot replicate, you will not get ill and are not infectious, so you cannot spread it to others.
The Clinical Infectious Diseases review11 confirms this. Under the heading “The Relationship Between RT-PCR Results and Viral Culture of SARS-CoV-2,”12 they point out that “significantly lower” CTs were used in studies that correctly identified infectious patients.
Five of the studies included were unable to identify any live viruses in cases where a positive PCR test had used a CT above 24. What’s more, in order to produce live virus culture, a patient whose PCR test used a CT at or above 35 had to be symptomatic.
So, to clarify, if you have symptoms of COVID-19 and test positive using a PCR test that was run at 35 amplification cycles or higher, then you are likely to be infected and infectious.
However, if you do not have symptoms, yet test positive using a PCR test run at 35 CTs or higher, then it is likely a false positive and you pose no risk to others as you’re unlikely to carry any live virus. In fact, provided you’re asymptomatic, you’re unlikely to be infectious even if you test positive with a test run at 24 CTs or higher. “
Guess what CT number is routinely used in testing ?