Much of energy behind this latest COVID-19 hysteria is due to the use of DNA testing to diagnose the illness. In fact, what can be said of the so-called "novel" virus is not that the virus itself is novel, but the method of identifying it is. The pattern of this testing, which is resulting in diagnoses occurring in many different random places with no connection to China, indicates that this test is resulting in widespread false positives. The pseudo-scientific nature of the test is dazzling public health workers and preventing them from scrutinizing the correctness of this test. If the test were accurate, the epidemiological pattern of results would be different than what we are seeing, therefore, it is natural to conclude that the test is being abused. There are three obvious ways that this can be happening:
(1) Markers are Generic.
The most straightforward explanation for false positives is that the markers being used for the test are not specific to a particular virus, but are common to many different viruses. Virus genomes are very similar to one another and there are only slight differences between them. Therefore, identifying a small subset of DNA sequences that exactly match one particular virus is difficult to do. No validation of the Chinese markers has been done that would experimentally check that they are truly unique. If they are not unique, then the test is worthless, because it means that people who do not have COVID-19 could test positive, and in fact it could easily mean that most or even all of the positives are false (low specificity).
One easy check of the validity of the markers would be to find an isolated population of several hundred people, one that could not have been exposed to COVID-19, and then test them all. If any of them test positive, then it means the markers are generic and have no genuine diagnostic value. This basic and obvious validity check has not been performed, which is an indication of the hysterical and unscientific nature of the current alarm.
(2) Non-Exact Matches are Being Treated as Positive Results.
Genetic testing labs do not make diagnoses. They merely say whether a biological sample contains matching DNA sequences at particular loci. These sequences are often called markers. A match only occurs if all of the markers match exactly. If a doctor or public health official receives results back from the lab and it shows that 3 out of 4 markers match, that doctor or official might nevertheless be announcing this as a positive result in the mistaken belief that a partial match indicates the possible presence of the virus. This is not true. A partial match indicates that the virus is NOT present, it is a false result, not a positive result.
(3) Use of Non-Specific Antibody Tests
In some cases, doctors may be attempting to diagnose COVID-19 infections using generic viral tests. These tests typically detect various classes of human antibodies. It is much easier to detect antibodies than the viruses themselves. The problem with using such tests is that they are non-specific. Anybody can and often will test positive because all it takes is to have had a cold any time in their entire life, because once a person's body begins producing a particular antibody, it will remain in their blood forever. If such tests are being used to diagnose COVID-19 patients, then it is completely false because such people could test positive as a result of having cold viruses that bear no relation whatsoever to COVID-19.