Quote:
Originally Posted by evman150
Don't be fooled by 98% or 99% specificity. Those are not good numbers. They look good, but can result in catastrophically incorrect data. As the below link highlights, the actual accuracy of a positive asymptomatic rapid test is likely to be no better than random chance, and can be far, far worse.
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1411/rr |
If you notice that wasn’t done in Omicron. It was done from sept 2020 to Jan 2021 when assessing the population base that had Covid at that time was far lower.
Also it statements of 50/50 being no better than a coin flip is misleading because you have taken it from being a 1/100 chance that anyone person has Covid to a 50/50 chance that the person has Covid upon positive test. So by rapid testing you have significantly improved the likelyhood of selecting a person who has Covid.
So for a business having two people segregate from critical staff with a 50/50 chance of being positive and having 97 people be true negatives and 1 false negative slip though I have reduced the Covid exposure by half by having 2 people at home.