Testing Question

Adly812

I really hope this is not totally ridiculous, but I have a question about Coronavirus testing. If someone has the common cold, or HIV or herpes and gets a coronavirus test, would the result be positive, as they have a virus ? Or when you get a coronavirus test done, is it solely testing for the particular virus Coronavirus? 

I think I know the answer but I just wanted to check as i just wondered how accurate the testing was, and if anyone who had a virus at the time of the test showed up with a positive result ?

Browntoa

It's looking solely for covid19

neilmcl

No test is 100% accurate, I think the the current Covid swab test is around 70% however it only tests for Covid-19 so will not be thrown out by the existence of any other virus.

sweetsand

Covid test just for that and I think depending on test used it does not give a false positive.  It can easily give a false negative if test not carried out properly.

nicechap

As neilmcl says, accuracy is about 70%; source: https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/working-for-us/staff/documents/staff-testing-privacy-statement.pdf#:~:text=The test is not 100,Tests are completely voluntary.

Plenty of examples of false positives if you google for articles: e.g.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53521306

Dr_Crypto

No.
You can get false positives with these tests but they are rare and mostly caused by contamination of the sample. 

Certainly having another infection eg HIV wouldn’t cause a positive test. 

sweetsand

Dr_Crypto said:

No.
You can get false positives with these tests but they are rare and mostly caused by contamination of the sample. 

Certainly having another infection eg HIV wouldn’t cause a positive test. 

Thanks Doc, I stand corrected!!