jay123
Member
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2017
- Messages
- 288
Taiwan hasn't reported any new COVID-19 cases in months and "some" of the U.S. media has heralded the country as, "a shining example of effective leadership". But the media are not talking about how PCR testing works... there is no COVID-19 test that produces a binary result of POSITIVE or NEGATIVE like they seem to claim!
Despite Taiwan's "near perfect' COVID-19 response with only 447 confirmed cases and 7 deaths, when a Japanese student who had been studying abroad in Taiwan decided to return to Japan on June 20th, she tested positive for COVID-19 upon entering the country. Initially, Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) feared that their stake of ten weeks of no new COVID-19 infections was over, but upon further investigation... it was only a "weak positive". When the CECC examined the data of the student's COVID-19 test, they realized that she had a Cycle Threshold (CT) value of 37-38, which counts as a "positive" COVID-19 case in Japan and the United States, but "negative" in Taiwan.
Taiwan's CECC apparently doesn't have an agenda of making their President look as bad as possible. Realizing that COVID-19 patients with a CT value of 32 or higher are unlikely to get sick or be contagious, Taiwan only considers a person to be COVID-19 positive if they have a CT value of less than 35, which means the PCR test must find one of the matching genetic sequences associated with SARS-Cov-2 within the first 34 cycles of DNA amplification (34 cycles creates 17.18 billion copies of the DNA sample). Both the U.S. and Japan use a much higher Cycle Threshold of 40, allowing for 5 extra cycles of DNA amplification. This is a BIG deal, because 39 cycles of DNA amplification creates 549.76 billion copies of the DNA sample... greatly increasing the odds of a FALSE positive from cross contamination. If the powers that may be really want to step up the fear-mongering to sway the nation... they should increase the Cycle Threshold even higher to 45 because at that level approximately 50% of all COVID-19 tests become positive.
Here is the article from Taiwan about what happened: Japanese student with COVID-19 a 'weak positive,' likely not contagious - Focus Taiwan
I’m not even sure that people can get a Cycle Threshold score or do they just tell you if you are positive or negative. If anybody has information about this please reply in the thread.
The more “cases” that are positive in the US may possibly mean that workplaces could make employees take the test to return to work or to keep working. This is where the cycle threshold value score would be important because if the US and other countries are considering 40 a positive, I wonder if many of the positives are coming back with a score of 32 or higher, because according to Taiwan you would not even be considered contagious. Also, how many people have fallen into that score of 32 to 40 that have already been tested and are self-isolating, have families that are fearing, and also not able to work, and are not contagious?
I learned a lot about Taiwan in the last couple of years because my family had the honor of having a foreign exchange student fromTaiwan stay with us. She was very smart and only 18. She had to go back to Taiwan when all of this coronavirus started (reason being was that her parents knew it was safer in Taiwan). The Taiwanese were the first to sound the alarm about something happening in China and Taiwan went into action fast. But I remember something that our foriegn exchange student said to me. She looked me in the face and said, “Do you know why we do not have many people infected?” I asked her why and she said, “Because we do not have WHO!” And she smiled.
Despite Taiwan's "near perfect' COVID-19 response with only 447 confirmed cases and 7 deaths, when a Japanese student who had been studying abroad in Taiwan decided to return to Japan on June 20th, she tested positive for COVID-19 upon entering the country. Initially, Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) feared that their stake of ten weeks of no new COVID-19 infections was over, but upon further investigation... it was only a "weak positive". When the CECC examined the data of the student's COVID-19 test, they realized that she had a Cycle Threshold (CT) value of 37-38, which counts as a "positive" COVID-19 case in Japan and the United States, but "negative" in Taiwan.
Taiwan's CECC apparently doesn't have an agenda of making their President look as bad as possible. Realizing that COVID-19 patients with a CT value of 32 or higher are unlikely to get sick or be contagious, Taiwan only considers a person to be COVID-19 positive if they have a CT value of less than 35, which means the PCR test must find one of the matching genetic sequences associated with SARS-Cov-2 within the first 34 cycles of DNA amplification (34 cycles creates 17.18 billion copies of the DNA sample). Both the U.S. and Japan use a much higher Cycle Threshold of 40, allowing for 5 extra cycles of DNA amplification. This is a BIG deal, because 39 cycles of DNA amplification creates 549.76 billion copies of the DNA sample... greatly increasing the odds of a FALSE positive from cross contamination. If the powers that may be really want to step up the fear-mongering to sway the nation... they should increase the Cycle Threshold even higher to 45 because at that level approximately 50% of all COVID-19 tests become positive.
Here is the article from Taiwan about what happened: Japanese student with COVID-19 a 'weak positive,' likely not contagious - Focus Taiwan
I’m not even sure that people can get a Cycle Threshold score or do they just tell you if you are positive or negative. If anybody has information about this please reply in the thread.
The more “cases” that are positive in the US may possibly mean that workplaces could make employees take the test to return to work or to keep working. This is where the cycle threshold value score would be important because if the US and other countries are considering 40 a positive, I wonder if many of the positives are coming back with a score of 32 or higher, because according to Taiwan you would not even be considered contagious. Also, how many people have fallen into that score of 32 to 40 that have already been tested and are self-isolating, have families that are fearing, and also not able to work, and are not contagious?
I learned a lot about Taiwan in the last couple of years because my family had the honor of having a foreign exchange student fromTaiwan stay with us. She was very smart and only 18. She had to go back to Taiwan when all of this coronavirus started (reason being was that her parents knew it was safer in Taiwan). The Taiwanese were the first to sound the alarm about something happening in China and Taiwan went into action fast. But I remember something that our foriegn exchange student said to me. She looked me in the face and said, “Do you know why we do not have many people infected?” I asked her why and she said, “Because we do not have WHO!” And she smiled.