Out of 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one gave false positives more than 15% of the time. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time. 'That's really terrible,' one of the study authors said.
Some antibody tests, which check for prior Covid-19 infection, had high rates of false positives in screenings performed by a consortium of California laboratories, according to a recently released report.
A false positive means someone would be told they'd already had coronavirus when they had not -- a potential danger as people could then think they were immune to the virus when they're actually still vulnerable. Of the 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one of the tests gave false positives more than 15% of the time, or in about one out of seven samples. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time. "That's terrible.
The California researchers obtained as many tests as possible, but so far have been unable to screen antibody tests by large test makers such as Roche and Abbott, because they require proprietary instruments to run the tests, which the California tests did not have. They hope to continue screening more antibody tests to see if they work, but warned that even if a reliable test shows you have antibodies, doctors still don't know what that means.
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