This just hit me. Maybe it has been obvious to others for a while, but maybe the covid swab tests do nothing but detect covid virus deposited in a person's throat or nasal cavities (perhaps mouth too). Perhaps the tests are not determining if a person has covid, yet they are treating all positive tests as if a person is infected with covid (omicron). I bet if all of us went out and got a test, many of us would test positive, only because we happened to have walked by someone who had covid virus in THEIR mouth, nose, or throat, and some became airborne, and then we get it inside of our mouth, nose, or throat, and then, if tested, with the multiplication they do with the tests, a positive would result. I knew they wanted all these tests to jack up the numbers, but I had always thought it was to jack up the numbers of people who truly were infected with covid, but I believe it's just to jack up the numbers, with most probably just temporary vessels of the virus, with their own immune system knocking it out (unless they got a covid shot, then they'll probably come down with a case of covid :) )
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If the swabs were "pre-infected" with covid, so to speak, then ALL of the covid tests would come back positive, rather than the few percent they report (I think I saw it as high as 10% here in NY during the recent omicron spike). Is that what you meant when you said "swabs could already carry sequences"?
There are a couple of variables I can think of:
What material is on the swap: Presumably some portions would match one or more of the primer sequences.
What primers are being looked for: Labs do not have a standard protocol, they can search for any single primer, any two primers, etc.
Concentration of material: How much material is present, the PCR has a certain threshold for a positive test (the infamous CT number).
Amplification of the PCR: Measured in cycles. Each cycle doubles the amount of material found. This is a binary doubling -- 40 cycles (which was routine) is 2^40 a magnification of over one trillion!
Because the PCR can be manipulated so easily with the CT, I don't really see any value in contaminating people with the swabs. If the goal is to increase positive cases, that is. If the goal is to infect folks with something, then yes swabs could do it.