• Kary Mullis designed the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test.
• He also said it was not suitable for diagnosing viruses.
• No "gold standards"; that is, a guaranteed test to compare against[1].
• No set of identifying symptoms to compare tests against either.
• Isolating samples of a virus is an appropriate "gold standard."
• PCR tests cannot distinguish active infection vs deitritus.

And if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, COVID-19 diagnosis — contrary to Watson’s statement — cannot be suitable for serving as a valid gold standard.

In addition, “experts” such as Watson overlook the fact that only virus isolation, i.e. an unequivocal virus proof, can be the gold standard.

That is why I asked Watson how COVID-19 diagnosis “may be the best available gold standard,” if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, and also whether the virus itself, that is virus isolation, wouldn’t be the best available/possible gold standard. But she hasn’t answered these questions yet – despite multiple requests. And she has not yet responded to our rapid response post on her article in which we address exactly the same points, either, though she wrote us on June 2nd: “I will try to post a reply later this week when I have a chance.”

No "purified sample"

Hence, we have asked the science teams of the relevant papers which are referred to in the context of SARS-CoV-2 for proof whether the electron-microscopic shots depicted in their in vitro experiments show purified viruses.

But not a single team could answer that question with “yes” — and NB., nobody said purification was not a necessary step. We only got answers like “No, we did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification” (see below).

Study 1: Leo L. M. Poon; Malik Peiris. “Emergence of a novel human coronavirus threatening human health” Nature Medicine, March 2020. Answer: “The image is the virus budding from an infected cell. It is not purified virus.”

Study 2: Myung-Guk Han et al. “Identification of Coronavirus Isolated from a Patient in Korea with COVID-19”, Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, February 2020. Answer: “We could not estimate the degree of purification because we do not purify and concentrate the virus cultured in cells.”

Study 3: Wan Beom Park et al. “Virus Isolation from the First Patient with SARS-CoV-2 in Korea”, Journal of Korean Medical Science, February 24, 2020. Answer: “We did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification.”

Study 4: Na Zhu et al., “A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China”, 2019, New England Journal of Medicine, February 20, 2020. Answer: “[We show] an image of sedimented virus particles, not purified ones.”

Footnotes

[1]: A "gold standard" is listed in the article as a pregnancy, since a pregnancy test can be compared against a baby showing up months later.