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Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

nature.com

41–50 of 236 posts

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#42
What I think really matters for most people is not to find out whether they have covid or not, but whether they are infectious or not. I'd really like to see research (any at all!) into how effective different test methods are at predicting infectiousness and am disappointed that this never seems to get addressed.

Because who cares if you're asymptomatic but your viral load is low and you're unlikely to infect others? If lack of viral load is the reason that the test is a false negative but that's also correlated with low likelihood that you can infect others, then this understanding is not useful. The test still did it's job for what people needed it for.

The full article does not seem to be publicly accessible, so I'm not sure if my comment is already covered.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#43
post #34
post #6

Is that really a problem if asymptomatic cases are less infectious and do not cause much issues to the carrier? (This is a question, not a statement)

.... maybe .... It depends on the purpose of the test. For example, a trillion dollar question is still long covid. Very significant numbers of people are on disability right now. About 10% of Americans have some form of long covid, and >1% are unable to work due to long covid (or >2% of the workforce). Long covid comes up even with mild and asymptomatic cases, and seems to have a strong autoimmune component. If you'…

Can long covid be considered post-viral fatigue? I remember being knocked out with Mononucleosis years ago and being tired out for over a month afterwards. Or is long Covid something entirely different?

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The authors say that an informational campaign about the proper way to take rapid tests might help to preserve public confidence in the tests’ utility.” Why do we have to spend tax payer money for a campaign to try and force people to care about the utility of a product that can't accurately detect a symptomless virus. Honestly starting to forget it was ever even a thing.

I had COVID a few weeks ago. You will remember.

le scary anecdote! I remember that!

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#45
post #14

[flagged]

Almost every single person and business wants money, using it as a motive without any other evidence is meaningless.

Lobbying the government to make it mandatory for people to use your products goes beyond ‘wants money’.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#46

I remember early on that they were advertised as just confirming COVID when you were at the height of symptoms. Then we got flooded with using them all the time and expectations of much more. What happened?

In the end it turned out that common sense has always been right. The more sick you are the easier it is to spread and detect. The tests just detect and confirm the obvious.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#47
post #8

Duh, they only detect levels of viral load sufficient to make a person infectious, around 1e6 RNA copies per cc of fluid. And viral load tends to peak somewhere in the 1e10 to 1e14 range, people at 1e6 really have to work at coughing directly on to growth plates to create a sample. Back in the early days of Covid-19 people didn't typically begin displaying symptoms visible without an x-ray until they'd nearly reach t…

> Duh, they only detect levels of viral load sufficient to make a person infectious, Then how do you explain this: > However, repeating the test 3 times, 48 hours apart, led to detection of infections in 75% of asymptomatic participants.

False positives.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#48
post #43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.... maybe .... It depends on the purpose of the test. For example, a trillion dollar question is still long covid. Very significant numbers of people are on disability right now. About 10% of Americans have some form of long covid, and >1% are unable to work due to long covid (or >2% of the workforce). Long covid comes up even with mild and asymptomatic cases, and seems to have a strong autoimmune component. If you'…

Can long covid be considered post-viral fatigue? I remember being knocked out with Mononucleosis years ago and being tired out for over a month afterwards. Or is long Covid something entirely different?

A cursory google suggests that post-viral fatigue from COVID is expected to last a few weeks. Long COVID can last months; I know at least one person who still has long COVID symptoms from an infection that occurred in April 2020.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#49

My pet theory is the vaccine is good at creating populations that have asymptomatic and subclinical experiences with the disease and that probably contributes to spread because otherwise those people would've stayed home if they were sicker. This seems to confirm that it even does this to the rapid tests.

Wouldn't it also stand to reason that these people are asymptomatic because they have low viral load, and low viral load means less virus in the air they expel, reducing spread?

Not more so than if they stayed home.

Re: Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases

#50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Duh, they only detect levels of viral load sufficient to make a person infectious, Then how do you explain this: > However, repeating the test 3 times, 48 hours apart, led to detection of infections in 75% of asymptomatic participants.

False positives.

These are exceedingly rare, like almost never happen.
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