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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For those who don't like the date of April, 2020, here's another article from infectious disease specialists from July, 2021:

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-07-14/why-covid-19-screening-should-be-used-sparingly-in-schools

Why We Shouldn’t Blindly Screen Students for COVID-19 This Fall
When case rates are low, the majority – and sometimes even the vast majority – of positive test results are false-positives.

The DESE testing program and others across the state and across the country have shown us that the probability of COVID-19 in asymptomatic students attending in-person learning was consistently low – less than 0.5% – even before widespread vaccination. [b]Using 0.5 as a (very) generous overestimate and a close-to-perfect (99% specific) diagnostic test, that means for every one true positive test, three will be false-positive. [/b]The true specificity of some polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests is probably closer to 95% (in other words, still very good, but not quite so close to perfect). This more realistic estimate increases the proportion of false-positives test results even more – [b]up to 14 false-positives for every real case of COVID-19 identified by the screening program. [/b]As case rates continue to decline, the ratio of real cases to false-positives only gets worse (and worse). Assuming a rate of 1 in 1,000 or 0.1% and a nearly perfect test, there are 14 false-positive tests for every real case found by a screening testing program, and 71 if we use the more realistic estimate of 95% specificity.
[/quote]

Thank you for posting this article.[/quote]

That article is pre-Delta and describes an environment of declining case rates.[/quote]

Delta doesn’t change math.[/quote]

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