Below is the article that raises the question for me. I understand that specificity and sensitivity relate to false negatives and false positives. We don’t want either. I’ve read that for a lab test, a specificity above 90% and a sensitivity also above 90% is good, and the higher the better. Also, 100% for either is unrealistic.
Dr. Birx states below that a test that’s only 99% specific “means that when you find a positive, 50 percent of the time [it] will be a real positive, and 50 percent it won’t be.” Is that true or did she misspeak? If it’s true, I don’t know why we do any lab testing.
Can a smarter person that me explain how this works? Thanks for your help.
L.A. County Study: Coronavirus Outbreak Up to 55 Times More Widespread, Less Deadly Than Predicted
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020 ... predicted/
Asked about L.A. County study’s findings, Dr. Birx warned reporters on Monday, “These [antibodies] tests are not 100 percent sensitive or specific,” adding:
If you have one percent of your population infected and you have a test that’s only 99 percent specific that means that when you find a positive, 50 percent of the time will be a real positive, and 50 percent it won’t be. And that’s why we’re really asking people to start testing in among the first responders and the health care workers who may have had the greatest exposures because that’s where the tests will be most reliable and then when we have the luxury we can go out to broader and broader communities.