The contents of Dr. Corbett’s May 2020 follow-up queries to Public Health England are available here:
https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/More-questions-to-Public-Health-England-re-COVID19-testing-May-2020.pdf
Public Health England’s responses to those 12 questions are available here: https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Public-Health-England-responses-re-COVID19-testing-May-2020.pdf
Summary
April 2020 emails – ‘SARS-CoV2’ Antibody Tests:
- Public Health England were trying to assess the performance of lateral flow immunoassays [LFIA/ELISA] – see the paper they gave by Crook (2020) which was downloaded via the link in the email [that link now doesn’t work]
- the performance of the LFIAs [‘ELISAs’] – sensitivity – was poor for “most patient applications” but these ELISAs could be calibrated for ten days after symptom onset.
May 2020 emails
- ‘Viral isolation’ not advised in accordance with instructions from the World Health Organisation, para 6, interim guidance, 2 March 2020: ‘Laboratory testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in suspected human cases’. This showed to me that the UK National Health Service is under the scientific guidance [?jurisdiction] of the World Health Organisation.
- Re gold standard for PCR test: PHE referred me to the Corman et al (2020) paper that implies the GS is a repeated PCR: using the same test methodology as its own reference standard without viral isolation.
- remaining questions weren’t clearly answered; and I was referred back to the attached Corman et al (2020), and to other government publications, which I think are still accessible on the links PHE supplied.