Flu-Like Illnesses
by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath How many people with ‘flu-like’ illnesses are being mislabelled as Covid? Cases of Covid appear to have surged recently. Hospital admissions for Covid are now also starting to rise. To question how much of this rise is genuinely the result of Covid is to challenge the prevailing narrative, but as a scientist it is essential to ask hard questions. It is critical that we understand when someone is ill, but it is not Covid. We have limited resources for ‘Track and Trace’ and it is important that they are used wisely, especially when real outbreaks occur. Scientists are grappling with what the rate of false positive results are with the current Covid test. The risk of a false positive result comes not only from aspects of the testing process itself but may vary from one population to another. It may even vary over time. Every country has systems of external quality control for their laboratories. A summary has been published of attempts by these bodies to establish the risk of false positive Covid testing from other coronaviruses (one of the causes of the common cold). They tested against two strains of non-Covid coronaviruses. These showed between 0.58% and 0.96% were false positive with Covid testing. With large numbers of tests each day, this level of ...