The absurdly high cycle thresholds are only one of the problems with the PCR test for covid.
A more basic issue is that nobody can say whether the genetic material it is testing for is actually from a virus called sars-cov2 or not. Nobody has actually seen one of those viruses - they are purely hypothetical based on computer modeling (and yes, I know that is standard practice in virology, but that doesn't make it any better). And the sequence for the original test was extracted from something coughed up by a pneumonia patient in Wuhan, which likely contained biological material from a variety of unknown sources.
Another issue, of course, is that the tests have never been validated. Typically, you would want to compare the results of a test like this to some other test to see how reliable it is. In this case, the thing to do would be to compare PCR test results to clinical diagnoses in the same patients to see if they match up. Problem is, there is no clinical diagnosis for covid. The PCR test (and now its cousins the antibody and antigen tests) is the one and only diagnostic criteria for covid, which means there is no independently verifiable criteria by which it could be validated.
So the fact that your test is positive or negative doesn't mean anything - except perhaps meaning that your doctor is being lazy and relying on a lab test instead of actually looking at your symptoms and history.
Whether or not there actually ever was a new disease called covid is perhaps an open question. But all of the "covid cases" in the last three years, without a doubt, included grab-bag of various colds and flus and who-knows what else that were misdiagnosed on the basis of meaningless lab tests.
Re: flu mixed up with COVID
A more basic issue is that nobody can say whether the genetic material it is testing for is actually from a virus called sars-cov2 or not. Nobody has actually seen one of those viruses - they are purely hypothetical based on computer modeling (and yes, I know that is standard practice in virology, but that doesn't make it any better). And the sequence for the original test was extracted from something coughed up by a pneumonia patient in Wuhan, which likely contained biological material from a variety of unknown sources.
Another issue, of course, is that the tests have never been validated. Typically, you would want to compare the results of a test like this to some other test to see how reliable it is. In this case, the thing to do would be to compare PCR test results to clinical diagnoses in the same patients to see if they match up. Problem is, there is no clinical diagnosis for covid. The PCR test (and now its cousins the antibody and antigen tests) is the one and only diagnostic criteria for covid, which means there is no independently verifiable criteria by which it could be validated.
So the fact that your test is positive or negative doesn't mean anything - except perhaps meaning that your doctor is being lazy and relying on a lab test instead of actually looking at your symptoms and history.
Whether or not there actually ever was a new disease called covid is perhaps an open question. But all of the "covid cases" in the last three years, without a doubt, included grab-bag of various colds and flus and who-knows what else that were misdiagnosed on the basis of meaningless lab tests.