What the CDC ACTUALLY said is, “CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses.”
This is unclear double-speak.
I get your argument, and — in a perfect world — I’d buy it.
As-is, I don’t.
Because whatever it is that they actually MEANT, what they WROTE doesn’t exclude my claim being the actual truth.
The ever-veiled CDC here, again, COULD have cleared the air with a simple “because...,” but chose to be less verbose, and therefore less conclusive.
So, here WE are out here with just their muddled verbiage for reference trying to discern which they mean:
“..., because the existing PCR DETECTS both COVID and influenza, but doesn’t DIFFERENTIATE between them, so a positive result doesn’t tell you which you have.”
OR
“..., because the existing PCR ONLY DETECTS COVID, which limits its utility during flu season.”
DON’T forget that we still have The Missing 2020 Flu Season to account for; a test that flips positive for BOTH COVID and at least some strains of flu would absolutely account for all
the flus that weren’t.
So, color me skeptical.
I’m not even sure it would be possible to create an RT-PCR test that didn’t distinguish between Influenza and SARS-CoV-2. The two viruses are so radically different (again, not even the same phylum) that I think you’d have a hard time finding enough similarity in nucleotide sequences.
In other words, it would be vastly more complicated to create a test that can’t distinguish between flu and SARS-CoV-2 than it would to create one that does. They’re just completely different animals. It would be like creating a camera AI program that watches surveillance footage and identifies what it sees. Creating camera AI that can distinguish between a human and a snail is easier than creating one that sees them as the same thing.