I know the NSW Government has better things to do, there’s a whole population to keep sufficiently scared, but I thought I’d give it a try. I sent the following to the Premier and the Health Minister.
20 December 2020
Gladys Berejiklian
Premier of NSW
Dear Premier
Re: PCR testing in NSW
I am a concerned citizen with some specific questions regarding PCR testing done in NSW. The data that is publicly available on your website does not answer my questions.
Question 1:
Is the following data in relation to all reported test results collected and collated in the one database along with the personal data of the persons being tested, and is there a requirement that this data is supplied to you by the testing centres and laboratories?
- The name of the testing station
- The name of the laboratory
- The name of all personnel who interacted with the tested persons
- The name of the testing kit used
- The cycle threshold (Ct) value that was applied
- All the gene sequences tested for each sample (E, N, RdRp)
Question 2:
Do you acknowledge that it is of fundamental importance for the interpretation of PCR tests to collect the data referred to in Question 1, in particular to ensure that we are not dealing with a test pandemic of false positives (given the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in the community must be very low) or contamination issues?
Question 3:
In the event that samples are only tested for one gene, are laboratories required to test for other genes before they report a positive result?
Question 4:
Why are you referring to people who merely tested positive as “cases”? Do you not think this is a misleading characterisation, given a PCR test does nothing more than indicate that matter with certain gene sequences is present in a person’s body, and a PCR test is not in itself a diagnosis of anything and says nothing about the state of health or infectiousness of a person? I refer to the CDC’s definition of a “case” here: https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section5.html
Question 5:
In light of this, do you agree it would be better to refer to positive test results in your publicised statistics as “positive test results” or “people tested positive”?
Question 6:
In light of the above, do you not think it is your duty to inform the public and the media about the nature and limitations of PCR tests?
Question 7:
Are you aware of the following article which fundamentally questions the validity of the WHO-supported Corman/Drosten PCR test protocol? https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
Question 8:
Are you aware of the WHO’s own media release of 14 December 2020? https://www.who.int/news/item/14-12-2020-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users
Question 9:
Are you aware of the Portuguese court of appeal decision which was highly critical of PCR testing? https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2020-11-27/covid-pcr-test-reliability-doubtful-portugal-judges/56962
I look forward to your response
