FDA Maintains PCR Tests Are “Gold Standard” Despite CDC Dropping Over Positive Results ‘Up To 12 Weeks’

On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky defended the agency’s decision to eliminate PCR testing at the end of a Covid infection as part of its recommended guidelines, because the tests can ‘stay positive for up to 12 weeks.’

In other words, as Yossi Gestetner points out, “This means that for the past 21 months, people sat home for extra days and weeks because their test came back with an irrelevant positive.”

This means that for the past 21 months, people sat home for extra days and weeks because their test came back with an irrelevant positive. We didn’t know this 6, 12, 18 months ago? Really?

— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) December 29, 2021

The FDA, however, which called the tests the “gold standard” in a July PolitiFact “healthcheck” – effectively rebutted Walensky’s comments, after spokesman Jim McKinney told Just The News that the agency stands by its assessment of PCR tests.

According to McKinney, the “high sensitivity and specificity” is exactly why the tests remain the “gold standard.”

The CDC’s acknowledgment is not new, McKinney said, pointing to the agency’s clarification of updated isolation guidance in August 2020, two weeks before the Times report on PCR tests.

While it said “people can continue to test positive for up to 3 months after diagnosis and not be infectious to others,” the CDC said that “does not imply a person is immune to reinfection” within three months. (A review of global databases last month found reinfections of the naturally immune were “rare” and “generally mild.”)

McKinney also noted the FDA told the Times that “commercial manufacturers and laboratories set their own” CT levels. -JTN

So the FDA knew all along that people have been missing work and avoiding life because they’re testing positive long after they’re infectious?

“Think of all the lives ruined, jobs lost, education squandered b/c of false positives,” tweeted Justin Heart of Rational Ground. “We’ve been saying since summer 2020 that the PCR test can be positive at 5 days or 75 days. And ONLY JUST NOW is it being used to adjust policy.”

I can’t even express how angry this makes me. Think of all the lives ruined, jobs lost, education squandered b/c of false positives. We’ve been saying since summer 2020 that the PCR test can be positive at 5 days or 75 days. And ONLY JUST NOW is it being used to adjust policy. https://t.co/4Q6rHFDB4S

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) December 29, 2021