How to Test Every American for COVID-19, Every Day (The Atlantic) is one of the most eye-opening articles I’ve read about testing in some time.
The main ideas I got from it are:
- US isn’t delivering PCR results faster than the virus.
- Silent spreaders are the virus’s secret power.
- White House encouraged test competition, so nothing happened.
- We must out-volume the virus with a massive number of tests.
- PCR tests don’t measure contagiousness, so they don’t help stop virus.
- PCR tests are positive even when you’re not contagious.
- Squeeze more tests from PCR testing via pooling.
- Antigen tests are inferior around day 1-3 of an infection, but are way better at end of infection.
- Paper antigen tests are COVID-19 contagiousness tests.
- Paper antigen tests are fast but much less sensitive than PCR tests.
- FDA says antigen tests must have 80% sensitivity compared to PCR tests.