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Comment by normalaccess | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a false positive due to the CDC is now recommending against PCR tests as they can’t tell between corona or the flu. I hate to say it but I think some of the people who were saying the numbers were wrong might be right, we might have been counting the flu this whole time along with the coronavirus.

https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert...

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> …the CDC is now recommending against PCR tests as they can’t tell between corona or the flu.

False: https://khn.org/news/article/fact-check-cdc-pcr-covid-test-d...

Please, not this misinformation and fake news on HN too. There's enough of it on Facebook and right wing circles.

How? That's what the linked CDC page says.

No, it's not. What the page says is that ONE PCR test (the oldest one) is being phased out. If you look at the page of tests still authorised, you'll see lots of PCR tests: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-disease-2019...

And the page says nothing about the now-withdrawn test being unable to differentiate between Covid and Influenza (which is not true). It encourages the development of tests that test for BOTH (since the patient is being tested anyway), but points out that those results must be reported separately.

That’s not what it says, it says they want to do a new test that can detect both and differentiate between the two.

The cynical take would be that that would mean they can order quarantines for the flu as well, of course.

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