Covid-19 LFTs may have a sensitivity of 80% for transmissible individuals

dovepress.com

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The full title was Recalibrating SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Lateral Flow Test Relative Sensitivity from Validation Studies to Absolute Sensitivity for Indicating Individuals Shedding Transmissible Virus which was not descriptive in terms of the main finding, and too long for HN.

The paper's main argument is the PCRs are very sensitive to individuals with Covid-19 RNA shedding in their upper respiratory tract, but that this often doesn't indicate infectiousness. Adjusting for this fact, they show that LFTs may offer a sensitivity of above 80 % for transmissible individuals.

Study is from March 2021, contains no data for delta or omicron.

The study presents a theoretical framework to transform the sensitivity of an LFT relative to a PCR to an absolute sensitivity of someone being transmissible. All the data it cites is used as an example and the study’s results can be easily adapted for any new data concerning Delta or Omicron, but as far as I know for Delta, there wasn’t any change with regards to the relative sensitivity. Concerning the proportion of people who test positive on a PCR who are transmissible, I imagine it was also constant, but I’m less sure for that.

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