The U.S. government seems to be fixated on coronavirus testing, as if those tests can be used to resolve the Covid-19 threat. To some extent, they can. But remember that they're only typical medical tests. In other words, just as with virtually all medical tests, they're calibrated so that interpretation of the test results adheres to the probabilities of the standard deviation curve. That means that there will be a few percent of false positive test results, and a few percent of false negative test results.
I've already seen an example in the news where a patient received a positive test result at his hospital and on his way back home, he went through another testing facility, where he received a negative result. You may have seen a similar story. So which result is correct?
A false positive result creates a significant inconvenience for the patient. But that's not nearly as worrisome as a false negative result, because a false negative result puts an infectious individual back into circulation so that he or she can unknowingly spread the virus freely, all the while thinking that they are safe because of that false negative test result. Never let your guard down.
Tex
A Caveat about Covid-19 Testing
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A Caveat about Covid-19 Testing
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
