This article is basically bullshit derived from a NY Times article, and I'm really sad that it got published. You know how every once in a while the media publishes an article about something you know and it's riddled with errors that drive a particular narrative? That article is my experience.

Research scientists and clinical scientists are worlds apart, and have very different goals in life.

I wouldn't trust a cT coming out of any research lab either, but clinical labs are far far more controlled and have far better processes, and have intense validation that shows that their threshold is repeatable, accurate, and a true representation of their limit of detection.

No research lab does any of this, and they almost never have extremely basic contamination protections like separate rooms for pre- and post-amplification rooms.

I've watched research scientists try to stand up clinical labs during this pandemic, and it has been an education for them to bring their standards up to what is the baseline for clinical testing. Its not unlike giving a butcher a scalpel and expecting brain surgery: there are a lot of the same skills involved but also very different and extremely narrow it's of knowledge.