Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in this case a false positive is unlikely to have any negative effects other than temporary anxiety while awaiting further screening, which is vastly more preferable to a false negative. The use of COVID PCR tests for "mass testing" of asymptomatic individuals in the UK has resulted in the number of positive "cases" corelating more closely with the number of tests performed than with other measures[1], such…
> vastly more preferable to a false negative depending from the POV. if a condition has an incidence of 0.001%, production capacity of test kits will probably be geared to that. if you suddenly have 0.01% false positives, you're outstripping production by a factor of ten it will also use up production capacity that might be necessary for other kits, driving up both test prices and/or wait time for everyone else. for…
That was my point - for example in Liverpool 700 "asymptomatic cases" were found (0.4% of those tested) using lateral flow tests[1]. Well below the expected ~2.5% of the population currently expected to be infected, and well within a range which makes it likely that a significant proportion are false positives. All of these people will have been legally required to isolate for two weeks, many likely unable to work.
The problem with mass testing is that the false positive rate is far closer to the actual incidence.
[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-54966607