Home » Health » Half of the positive coronavirus antibody tests could be wrong and create a false sense of security – the leading U.S. health agency

Half of the positive coronavirus antibody tests could be wrong and create a false sense of security – the leading U.S. health agency

The Centers for Control and Prevention of Diseases (CDC), a leading federal health agency, said in a new guide on Tuesday that mass tests in different populations will allow up to half of the positive results of antibody tests – also known as serological tests – to be possible Be wrong and warn that there are still major obstacles to determining who has been infected or what immunity they may have.

The unreliable tests should not make decisions about relocating potential patients “Collect Settings” – like schools, dormitories or prisons – decisions “On the return of people to work” the CDC said.

But even when there is a patient “Really positive” For antibodies, the agency said the result still does not prove that it is a person “Protected against future infections” or immune to the virus.

The rate of false positive and negative test results strongly depends on the total number of infections in a population. If a relatively small proportion of people in a particular area are infected with the virus – for example, five percent – according to the CDC, even a highly sensitive and specific test will still produce a significant number of false positives, up to 51 percent.

In line with the new guidelines, a research team at the University of Minnesota also warned of antibody testing and published a report last week that indicated that it was not “Diagnostic tools” given their inaccuracy.

To work around some of the shortcomings, the CDC advised health professionals to use only the highest quality, most specific tests, repeat screenings of those who were positive to check their outcome, and to target patients with a history focus on Covid-19-like symptoms.

The CDC announcement comes less than a week after the agency admitted that it combined data from antibody and RNA tests, merging two incompatible metrics – one that detects active infections and one that tests whether anyone ever had the virus. The merging of data reported by the Atlantic for the first time could significantly distort the numbers of state governments setting a course for reopening. Given the CDC’s recent announcement of antibody testing, the overall numbers may have been further distorted by false positives.

In addition to the CDC itself, at least four state health agencies – in Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont – said they combine numbers in the same way, according to the Atlantic.

The Department of Health also recently made waves when it revised its Total Death Rate (CFR) estimate and put the figure at around 0.4 percent, almost ten times lower than the World Health Organization’s original figure of 3.4.

Despite the questionable data, dozens of U.S. states are now trying to lift the extensive containment measures imposed in March to curb the spread of the virus as some of the country’s worst trouble spots, especially New York City, appear to be waning. To date, nearly 1.7 million people in the United States have tested positive for coronavirus throughout the pandemic, with more than 98,000 fatal cases. This emerges from data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

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