A leaflet from the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland is supposed to prove in one sentence that PCR tests are pointless.
In the “Information sheet on current COVID-19 testing in Switzerland” there is a sentence that many people are now getting hung up on and see as an admission that PCR tests do not really detect a corona infection.
That screenshot of the leaflet is shared:
The sentence that many people take as proof is:
“However, the detection of nucleic acid does not provide any conclusions about the presence of an infectious pathogen.”
The document can be viewed on the official BAG website . The text has since been changed, but we'll get into that in a moment.
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Please read EXACTLY what it says!
The connection with the next sentence is very important for understanding:
“This can only be done by detecting the virus and propagating it in cell culture.”
Yes, what exactly can be done?
What does “this” in the following sentence refer to? This is exactly where many users come to the wrong conclusion!
It's about detecting an infectious pathogen!
What does the PCR test prove?
According to the Infection Protection Act, an infection is “ the absorption of a pathogen and its subsequent development or reproduction in the human organism ”.
The PCR test only shows whether there is genetic material from the new coronavirus in the organism, i.e. it tests whether you are infected with the pathogen.
What does the PCR test NOT detect?
The PCT test does not show whether the pathogen is still infectious , i.e. whether the person is still contagious or whether the disease has already significantly subsided.
Further tests are necessary to prove whether a person is still infectious, i.e. can infect other people.
Then why PCR tests at all?
Since it is assumed that “a person with a positive PCR result is contagious most of the time during the infection ,” said Lukas Jaggi from Swissmedic in an email to Correctiv .
It is unclear at what point exactly a person is infected according to the PCR test but is no longer contagious, as this varies greatly and additional tests for each person represent an unmanageable additional effort.
Also important for tracking infection chains
“ Then maybe I’m no longer contagious, that’s arbitrary, isn’t it? “Some might now argue.
Not really. As already written: most of the time you are not only infected, but also contagious. So you definitely became infected at a certain point in time and probably infected others without knowing it, and that is incredibly important to know in order to be able to trace chains of infection.
The section has been changed
In the new version of the document dated August 31st. is now in the PCR/NAT section:
“With this very sensitive method, the nucleic acid of a pathogen is specifically detected in patient samples, which proves an infection with the pathogen.”
The word “infectious” was therefore removed and the sentence was worded differently and simplified to prevent further misunderstandings.
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Conclusion
The widely shared claim that the PCR test does not detect infections is false. It simply cannot prove whether a pathogen is still infectious, which is assumed in practice as long as it is still detectable.
Additional source: Correctiv
Article image: Shutterstock / By PhotobyTawat
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Notes:
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