Doctors criticize uncertified masks and PCR tests – Coronavirus Vienna

“We have to get used to living with the coronavirus and accept that people die from it, as well as from traffic accidents, influenza and cigarette smoke,” said medical expert Andreas Sönnichsen at a press conference in Vienna. Dr. Martin Haditsch criticized the fact that most of the PCR tests used “are not certified.”

Even with draconian measures, the virus could not be eradicated, so the disease it caused had to be classified within the “normal risks of life,” said Sönnichsen, who works at the Center for Public Health at the Medical University of Vienna. , but insist on your only private. Express an opinion.

As a medical professional, one should always strive to avoid causing harm with treatment. “With the Covid measures, starting with the lockdown to the current measures, it can be said with quite certainty that the harm is greater than the benefit,” he said. Other diseases would be poorly cared for, so there would be an excess mortality from heart attacks, for example. Many medical measures were stopped at clinics and reduced for Covid patients who later failed to attend, he said.

The benefits of the measures that are now being carried out, such as social distancing and the use of masks, are questionable: “The evidence from studies that speak in favor of the use of masks is extremely poor,” Sönnichsen said. The risk reduction is around 20 percent, but only if officially tested masks are worn correctly and changed regularly. There is no evidence that “self-paved pieces of cloth” help; They can be more harmful if washed infrequently and therefore colonized by bacteria, the doctor argued.

Martin Haditsch, a specialist in hygiene and microbiology, infectious diseases and tropical medicine, who also emphasized speaking as a private person, criticized the fact that much of the 400 PCR tests worldwide that are used to search for coronaviruses in the population are not certified.

“So there was no external test for these that would allow manufacturers to bring these PCR tests to market,” he said. Of all the PCR tests available, not a single one would be approved for testing in healthy people. Furthermore, most It is not known which specific SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences they actually detect, because the relevant agents (primers) for PCR would often not be revealed.

There is no independent certification for coronavirus PCR testing in Europe, AGES said at the request of the APA. Through the “CE” marking, manufacturers would ensure that a test meets the legal and qualitative standards regulated throughout Europe in medical device law.

A test would only have to be withdrawn from the market if problems arise. It could then only be used again after a thorough review by the Austrian Federal Office for Health Safety (BASG).