Diagnostics too sensitive: Your Covid test is positive. Should it be?

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the virus

Apoorva Mandavilli | NYT
Last Updated at August 30, 2020 08:54 IST

Coronavirus, vaccine, covid, drugs, clinical trials

The most widely used diagnostic test for the new coronavirus, called a PCR test, provides a simple yes-no answer to the question of whether a patient is infected.

Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.

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