Letter to Hancock and Hunt about positive tests

Matthew John David Hancock Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee I have received and answer to a FOI request back from your department, the DHSC, about the PCR tests they are using and what the results mean. One of my questions and the most important: -supply the justification that a "positive" test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.  The answer: SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Patients can have SARS-CoV-2 RNA before onset of illness, during the illness and after resolution of symptoms (all variable periods). The result has to be taken into context of symptoms present.  So my question to you both in your positions as Secretary of State for Health and as the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Social Care is: SO A POSITIVE TEST MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE CONTEXT OF “SUFFERING” FROM THE PIECES OF VIRAL MATERIAL DETECTED IN THE TEST SAMPLE SO WHY THE CONTINUING ADHERENCE TO INSISTING THAT A PERSON WHO TESTS POSITIVE MUST BE ISOLATED FOR 14 DAYS AND AREAS ARE TO BE PLACED INTO FURTHER LOCAL LOCKDOWNS BASED ON THE SAME MEANINGLESS TEST RESULT? They also provided a link to a document by Health Technology Wales which in answer to this question: - the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy. I can confirm that the Department holds information relevant to your request. As the information held by the Department is in the public domain, we will under Section 21 of the FOI Act (information accessible to the applicant by other means) refer you to the published source, a summary of evidence on the accuracy of the test,  https://www.healthtechnology.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAR025-COVID19-diagnostics-report-v2.6.pdf It does include a few notable gems such as (the paper’s original comments in blue with their updates in umber and with my notes in red):

We identified 39 individual studies and one pooled analysis reporting outcomes including diagnostic accuracy, detection rates and the time taken to obtain test results. We carried out quality assessment of the studies and judged the majority to be at risk of bias in one or more aspect of their design or conduct, which means their results may not be reliable. So not too accurate then these studies? Some studies did not include methods of confirmatory/differential diagnosis to validate the test results obtained (e.g. the proportion of likely false positive and negative results). A pooled analysis estimated the sensitivity of an initial RT-PCR test result to be 89%, using results of repeated RT-PCR as the reference standard. So does this mean that there is an estimated 11% false result? There are important gaps in the available evidence on the effectiveness of tests for the presence of SARS-CoV-2. Studies of virus testing in asymptomatic patients, or in specific populations such as healthcare workers are limited in number and there is no evidence on the validated diagnostic performance of the tests beyond their use in the hospital setting. So pretty useless then? a true assessment of the accuracy of RT-PCR test results is very challenging, and using these RT-PCR for validation mean the same issues apply to the results of antibody tests studied in this way. so the test has lots of problems with accuracy and the antibody test cannot be used for doublechecking the results due to these inaccuracies?

So basically as admitted by the DHSC you are using tests that are “unreliable” to say the least, have no reference standard to double check the accuracy against and that have results that means nothing medically?

And yet you still pump out the continuous propaganda that whole swathes of the population have to be put into isolation and incarceration based on these tests and results.

An explanation would be very much appreciated by myself and many other people as there has been absolutely nothing coming from Government for months now that makes any kind of sense.

Yours in growing exasperation and disgust.