Is A 'Positive' Covid Test Really Positive? The Importance Of 'CT Value'

Many health experts and doctors are raising a new concern over coronavirus testing. They claim that the standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. 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.