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Inhaled Vaccines Aim to Fight Coronavirus at Its Point of Attack
If an injectable vaccine were to be made available in the next few months, I'd be quite wary of getting it yet, as it doesn't seem that enough long-term testing of potential negative side-effects could have been done. But I don't seem to have quite as many reservations about one that would be inhaled or sprayed; I'm not sure that is logical of me.
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How quick and dirty Covid tests could end the weariness
But as the test would be so cheap and easy, couldn't the people who test positive simply repeat the test a certain number of times, to determine if the first one was really correct? I suppose that could be a problem as usually the false negative rate is higher than the false positive rate. But still, surely repeating the test a certain number of times would give a good indication?
This makes me wonder, not for the first time, what the false-positive and false-negative rates are for the current tests that are being used. If I recall right, there are hundreds of different tests being used in different places. I don't know if test takers are even told which specific test they're getting, and what its false positive & negative rates are.
So far, I've found this FDA page which lists the info for about 50 of the blood antibody tests:
EUA Authorized Serology Test Performance (EUA = Emergency Use Authorization)
This page lists a lot of viral & antigen tests as well as serology tests, but doesn't list false positive/negative rates along with them like the above page does. That info may be buried in the linked-to docs for each test, but I'm not sure:
In Vitro Diagnostics EUAs
.
These are the main types of tests:
Viral (molecular) test: detects genetic material of the virus. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are of this type.
Antigen test: detects certain proteins in the virus.
Antibody test: detects the antibodies produced by the body in response to the virus.
Nice animated timeline of when each type of test is most likely to give a positive result.
Additional notes:
IgG = Immunoglobulin G
IgM = Immunoglobulin M
IgA = Immunoglobulin A (this one is not mentioned in regards to the above serology tests)
pan-Ig = I did not find a definition for this; I would guess it is some combination of the above.
If an injectable vaccine were to be made available in the next few months, I'd be quite wary of getting it yet, as it doesn't seem that enough long-term testing of potential negative side-effects could have been done. But I don't seem to have quite as many reservations about one that would be inhaled or sprayed; I'm not sure that is logical of me.
.
How quick and dirty Covid tests could end the weariness
"Even if a cheap-as-a-cup-of-coffee test could be produced and distributed in sufficient quantities, problems remain. The most obvious is the issue of false positives. The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1 in 2,000 people were infected with coronavirus in England and Wales in late August. With a test that has a false-positive rate of just 1 per cent, you would wrongly flag up 20 uninfected people for every genuine case. The rarer the virus, the worse this problem becomes."
But as the test would be so cheap and easy, couldn't the people who test positive simply repeat the test a certain number of times, to determine if the first one was really correct? I suppose that could be a problem as usually the false negative rate is higher than the false positive rate. But still, surely repeating the test a certain number of times would give a good indication?
This makes me wonder, not for the first time, what the false-positive and false-negative rates are for the current tests that are being used. If I recall right, there are hundreds of different tests being used in different places. I don't know if test takers are even told which specific test they're getting, and what its false positive & negative rates are.
So far, I've found this FDA page which lists the info for about 50 of the blood antibody tests:
EUA Authorized Serology Test Performance (EUA = Emergency Use Authorization)
This page lists a lot of viral & antigen tests as well as serology tests, but doesn't list false positive/negative rates along with them like the above page does. That info may be buried in the linked-to docs for each test, but I'm not sure:
In Vitro Diagnostics EUAs
.
These are the main types of tests:
Viral (molecular) test: detects genetic material of the virus. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are of this type.
Antigen test: detects certain proteins in the virus.
Antibody test: detects the antibodies produced by the body in response to the virus.
Nice animated timeline of when each type of test is most likely to give a positive result.
Additional notes:
IgG = Immunoglobulin G
IgM = Immunoglobulin M
IgA = Immunoglobulin A (this one is not mentioned in regards to the above serology tests)
pan-Ig = I did not find a definition for this; I would guess it is some combination of the above.