PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
If a public health goal is detecting infectious ppl:
The most sensitive #COVID19 test in the world, if used rarely (ie 1x/month) is:
much LESS sensitive and LESS effective than a low sensitivity test used frequently.
Further...
1/x
If a public health goal is detecting infectious ppl:
The most sensitive #COVID19 test in the world, if used rarely (ie 1x/month) is:
much LESS sensitive and LESS effective than a low sensitivity test used frequently.
Further...
1/x
If a very sensitive #COVID19 test has a 24 hour or more delay to return results, it quickly becomes:
LESS EFFECTIVE to stop spread of SARS-CoV-2 than a lower sensitivity test that gives results in minutes.
2/x
LESS EFFECTIVE to stop spread of SARS-CoV-2 than a lower sensitivity test that gives results in minutes.
2/x
These are simple concepts when we start to look at testing not as a clinical diagnostic use, but for public health use to slow spread.
We discuss this here:
3/3 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/18/science.abe9187/tab-figures-data
We discuss this here:
3/3 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/18/science.abe9187/tab-figures-data
In the first tweet in this thread, I said “rarely” and pointed to 1x/month. But even the most sensitive test used only 1x per 2 weeks becomes almost useless for public health testing to slow spread.
We discuss this in detail here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/20/sciadv.abd5393.1
We discuss this in detail here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/20/sciadv.abd5393.1
And we discuss this here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2025631