That's completely inaccurate. PCR tests were specific for only Covid. They were extremely good at covid identification. A recent "recall" of PCR testing protocol was to introduce a new test that could perform identification of both Covid and/or flu.
You are blaming the experts in epidemiology for not being able to overcome political agendas, cable news propaganda, ignorant people, and a lack of trust in “the establishment” (which includes the FDA and CDC) caused by all of the above. The PR article was for medical professionals.
Americans on social media have become far too gullible. They can’t be bothered to fact check and they sure aren’t going to the source material. This is not a problem the CDC’s comma team could have prevented.
Know your audience, there is little point in speaking Russian to Hindu native speakers.
There is also little to be gained in only communicating in overly complicated language to your average Citizen. The CDC could, quite easily and simply communicate really very important announcements in a way that your average "man on the street" could read, consume and truly understand with very little effort or time.
The audience is different. They have tuned themselves to short videos, short blurts of text and meme images. I agree this is not good, but they need to communicate in the same language or risk this sort of misinformation spreading.
I had an argument on another site with someone making a similar claim about why I think the flu results started turning up mostly negative and why flu death attributions are basically non-existent this year, but I think it just muddies the point. The COVID PCR tests that have been used over the past 12+ months are accurate and do not conflate COVID with Influenza.
This article only make statements without references, which is troublesome. I agree with the recommendation to be careful of what you share, but just because it’s an article written by a medical doctor/institution, it doesn’t give it a free pass. I can show you articles of many other doctors and institutions contradicting many of these statements related to PCR.
Also interesting to note:
“ Every PCR test must be validated, meaning checked for its sensitivity and specificity.”
> Further: PCR tests are non-specific even when you keep the cycle count down - they show positive for BOTH Covid and Flu which is why flu "disappeared" in 2020: PCR tests were positive flu and was judged as Covid.
