Originally Posted by gnaget

Yes, but number of PCR cycles is highly sensitive and politicized. Often they simply will not disclose because they are not allowed and low level employees are not informed. In NZ, for example, someone had to file a FOIA to find out. It took something like 4 months to get an answer, which was 40. One would assume that the government sets the number of cycles that the lab has to perform, but this is kept secret. Also, you will find that the CDC does not specify that the test for entry has to be min X number of cycles. (At least when I tried to find out several months ago.) You would logically think that it would be important and a central criterion.

I checked the operating manual for one of the PCR machines and it always runs 46 cycles. You cannot manually select the number of cycles. It is up to the lab to ignore above X cycles.