Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier breaks down the effectiveness of available coronavirus testing.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Back to you, PETE
will watched
back to the future two with my
boys.
We move on to the coronavirus.
There has been advancements in
coronavirus testing,
but there is still a lot of
confusion.
Grammy winner singer, Erykah
Badu, left, nostril, positive
right, nostril negative
doctor only reported the
positive results.
This after Tesla CEO Elon Musk,
says he took four tests in one
day and two were positive and
two were negative.
So can all of this happen?
Lets ask Fox NEWS: medical
contributor, author of Make
America healthy again,
Dr Nicole Saphier,
Dr Saphier, help me make sense
of Erykah Badu and Elan Musk
stories.
We have two main types of
testing for Covid 19.
One is the pcr test looking for
genetic material of the virus,
that is usually that deem nasal
swab throat, swab or spit test.
That test is expensive and takes
several days for the results.
What these people are talking
about, those rapid, lateral, assay
antigent tests tend to be nasal.
Swab
theyre, looking for proteins,
the rapid tests are rapid,
get a quick turnaround less
expensive.
Why you see a lot of people
using them on movie sets and
just other places
the problem with the rapid
antiagain tests? They have can a
false negative rate up to high
as fifty percent.
It is far more likely to have a
false negative of that antigen
test than a false positive.
When you have a positive rapid
test, it is really important if
you dont have any clinical
symptoms to go to get the pcr
test.
If the pcr test comes back
positive chances, are you have
the coronavirus
whether or not you have symptoms,
doesnt really matter?
We know there is high amount of
asymptomatic individuals who are
still transmitting virus.
Will Dr Saphier, we hear other
stories
im a big sports fan.
We hear about NFL players every
weekend test positive on a
secondary test. No, it comes
back negative.
I hear you on the two types of
tests
largely resolves around. How
quickly results come back.
I got a rapid test, but it was a
deep nasal. Swab
feels like theyre hitting your
brain.
I got the results in fifteen minutes.
Is that still the less accurate
antigen test, which you says, has
a potential, fifty percent inaccuracy rate,
it is really hard. Honestly,
I dont know depends where you
were. What lab it is.
Some people are doing rapid test
on deep nasal swabs.
Usually the deep nasal is just
reserved for the pcr test,
the FDA put out a warning to
physicians and laboratory
clinicians. There are
false positives reported with
some rapid tests.
Preprint study on Germany on
Friday came out showing one of
their tests we dont use in the
United States. One of their
tests had false positive rate up
to ten percent.
We know there are false positive
occurring with the rapid tests
why it is important to make sure
it is confirmed with a pcr test
again. If the pcr test comes back
positive chances, are you have
the coronavirus?
Will we are relying on the
testing numbers so much to make
decisions?
It is not that we shouldnt, but
we should take into account what
youre laying out
you dont know how accurate
these things end up being
Dr Saphier thanks. So much for.
Transcript generated on 2020-11-15.