https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30453-7/fulltext
While this is focused on the UK, this seems significant given that the US is returning nearly a million test results per day. The overwhelming majority of our "cases" could be false, yet we're still thoughtlessly upending lives.
While this is focused on the UK, this seems significant given that the US is returning nearly a million test results per day. The overwhelming majority of our "cases" could be false, yet we're still thoughtlessly upending lives.
Quote:
The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 08% and 40%.2, 6 This rate could translate into a significant proportion of false-positive results daily due to the current low prevalence of the virus in the UK population, adversely affecting the positive predictive value of the test.2 Considering that the UK National Health Service employs 11 million health-care workers, many of whom have been exposed to COVID-19 at the peak of the first wave, the potential disruption to health and social services due to false positives could be considerable.
...
To summarise, false-positive COVID-19 swab test results might be increasingly likely in the current epidemiological climate in the UK, with substantial consequences at the personal, health system, and societal levels (panel).