‘RIDICULOUS NUMBER’: ELON MUSK DOUBTS ACCURACY OF COVID-19 TEST RESULTS
‘Anyone who tests positive should retest,’ billionaire mogul says
Elon Musk has expressed doubts about the accuracy of COVID-19 tests, saying that people who test positive should get another test.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the pandemic and voiced his discomfort, even dissent, with social distancing guidelines and shelter-in-place orders.
“There are a ridiculous number of false positive C19 tests, in some cases ~50%,” Musk has tweeted. “False positives scale linearly with [the number] of tests.”
There are a ridiculous number of false positive C19 tests, in some cases ~50%. False positives scale linearly with # of tests. This is a big part of why C19 positive tests are going up while hospitalizations & mortality are declining. Anyone who tests positive should retest.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2020
It wasn’t clear which data Musk was referring to, although the CDC warned last month that serologic antibody tests, which determine whether a person has been infected with COVID-19 in the past, might be wrong up to half the time.
There is no such thing as a 100-percent accurate test, and the prevalence rate (the portion of new cases occurring within a period of time) of a virus plays a big role in the eventual number of false and accurate results.
