. @GovRonDeSantis mentioned the NYT article finding that up to 90% of PCR tests do not identify infectious virus. "It seems to me that if you test positive with no symptoms, with a very sensitive PCR test, and they can’t even tell you if you’re infectious,...

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"we’re quarantining, across the country, probably hundreds of thousands or millions of people who aren’t even contagious"

Dr. J. Bhattacharya: "The key thing about the PCR technology... is that essentially you are doubling the genetic material, ...

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"the virus, if it’s present. If you have a very tiny amount of the virus, or if it’s a viral fragment... what you’re amplifying is something that’s not going to cause any risk, either to you or to others...

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"So you’re asymptomatic, you’re positive with a PCR, it’s not a false positive in a technical sense, but in a functional sense, it’s a false positive. Epidemiologically, it’s a false positive...

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"I’m not going to infect you, even though I’m PCR-positive, because it took so many doublings to reach the point, that we can infer that there really wasn’t much genetic material for the virus present to begin with...

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"You’re absolutely right to point out the cost of that when you attach it to a policy of contact tracing and isolation and quarantine...

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"There’s another follow-on cost to that, that it makes people less willing to cooperate with contact tracers because they know the cost. If I am contact traced and I’m asked to say who I’ve interacted with,...

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"I know if I say I interacted with my friends, they’re going to be facing the same thing, they might get quarantined. If it’s possible it’s a false positive, a functional false positive, then I’m imposing costs on them for nothing.”

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At 51:10: