>>I'm honestly not sure how this was an argument against him. It only seems to prove his point. What am I missing? The reliability of the primers (RNA/DNA samples), that's what you're missing, and the necessary multi layered approach "They can only detect proteins that are **believed, in some cases wrongly**, to be unique to HIV." It's sort of like a triangulation, one or two coordinate isn't enough, you need 3. And in the case of sars-cov-2/n-cov, you have to deal with the fact that it bears similarities with existing coronaviruses, so the multi layered test is mandatory, and that's an understatement for obvious reasons, otherwise you'll run into false positives since there is no such thing as only one bit of RNA (that you are magnifying with the PCR test) unique to sars-cov-2, to begin with, similarities with other coronaviruses aside. Most coronaviruses except mers and sars-cov for instance, are harmless, pretty much anybody can have one without even noticing Besides, in the case of the US, initial primers were bogus... https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/05/905484/why-the-cdc-botched-its-coronavirus-testing/ >>Case in point: FDA rules initially prevented state and commercial labs from developing their own coronavirus diagnostic tests, even if they could develop coronavirus PCR primers on their own. So **when the only available test suddenly turned out to be bunk**, no one could actually say what primer sets worked. Edit: Now go ahead, find the Mullis quote on PCR tests, he said it about the HIV and he died of pneumonia before covid19 was even a thing