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A comment on Merkel bans meetings of more than two people to slow coronavirus. Parent comment

Re:Merkel bans meetings of more than two people to slow coro... by DanBC on Sunday March 22, 2020 @04:04PM (#22658112)
The tests have an approx 20% false negative rate.

You test someone who has symptoms. The test returns negative. What do you tell them to do, given that you know the false negative rate?

This doctor says it better than me.

https://twitter.com/keirshiels/status/1241042696560619523?s=...

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Re:Merkel bans meetings of more than two people to slow coro... by colonelcanoe on Sunday March 22, 2020 @07:58PM (#22659977)
You tell them the same thing regardless of the outcome of the test.

The 80% of the time it returns positive, you tell the epidemiologist, and they prevent a few further infections by investigating close personal contacts.

[ Parent | on HN ]