As I’m sure you remember, Donald Trump recently unveiled a new rapid coronavirus test that he’s since been touting as the end-all, be-all to all our COVID-19 woes — you know, the one he unveiled upside down during one of his White House lawn press briefings?
But according to a new report from Stat News, Trump has once again left us all sorely disappointed as the rapid test he touted as a panacea to the problem is evidently spitting out false negatives — which is entirely unhelpful in every conceivable way.
“A rapid test for the novel coronavirus that was unveiled by President Trump on the White House lawn and has already been used hundreds of thousands of times can falsely produce negative results in patients who are infected, according to clinicians and laboratory experts,” the report reads.
“The 13-minute test, developed by Abbott Laboratories, a major U.S. health care and medical device company, usually still works properly, the company and clinicians say. But Abbott’s initial guidance on how to administer the test — guidance approved by the Food and Drug Administration — could lead to an unspecified number of false-negative results. Abbott says changing how samples are collected should fix the problem.”
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Basically, it seems as though the test performs the way it should so long as the person being tested has a moderate to high level of the virus in their system. However, it appears to be taking a downhill turn if the individual has a low level, ultimately leading to a false-negative test result.
The big problem with that is — just because the individual only has low levels of the virus in their system does not mean they’re not spreading it to an immeasurable number of other people who could potentially die from the infection, especially if they believe they’re negative for the virus.
Trump’s rush for a miracle cure to get this thing done and out the door has once again turned out to be a dud as he continues to push for the premature end of the only measures that have kept us even remotely safe this entire time — social distancing.
Featured image via screen capture
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