Minister Philippe De Backer has been rabid for several days. It was now a month since he announced that Belgium would arrive at 10,000 PCR tests per day, against COVID-19. And yet, day after day, the crisis center was crumbling far lower figures from the Sciensano organization: Barely 6162 tests this Tuesday April 28. Far below the Grail announced by Minister De Backer, custodian of stocks, or rather of the shortage of tests, masks and other necessities of COVID-19.
He had already lifted a corner of the veil on the reason for his wrath, Philippe De Backer. But here he is, in the House Health Committee, revealing to the confined members of the House the existence of differentiated accounting: the organization Sciensano and the minister do not both count apples, or both pears. No ! One of the patients tested is Sciensano. A patient with multiple tests equals one. However, it sometimes happens that we test several times in a row, since there are many false negatives in PCR tests (between 20 and 30%). The other test account: Philippe De Backer. A patient tested several times equals several tests. How stupid is that?
And Minister De Backer, in the Health Committee, therefore takes out his figures. That is here.
–
Not the revolution, but the confusion
Obviously, this is not the revolution. It is not the tests, even carried out twice for verification, that will explode the figures, and explain why from the start, not all accredited laboratories were involved in generalized testing. This is an other story.
On the other hand, this shows two things: there is uncertainty in the method, and Sciensano considerably irritates Minister De Backer. In addition, Minister De Backer is greatly irritating the accredited laboratories, but you were told that is another story.
Sciensano count change
Information taken from the public body of Health, from tomorrow, Sciensano will change its method of calculation during the press conference of the Crisis Center, history of harmonizing apples and pears, in this rather unfortunate compote.
–
