Quote:
Originally Posted by jdubya
Are the antibody tests today fairly accurate?
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Depends on the test. Most of the early tests (like the ones used on the Boston and Santa Clara examples listed in Bowser's link) had extremely poor specificity which rendered them a coinflip at best and led to a vast overestimation of the number of infections and a complete misrepresentation of the fatality rate (claiming it was much lower than reality).
Some of the newer tests that have been verified by outside parties have much better specificity levels, but it needs to be above 99.5% to have clinical utility in this environment.
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"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
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