Biotech Values

[biocqr]

97.1% sensitivity & 98.5% specificity....

Thoughts On a New Coronavirus Test (And on Testing)

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/27/thoughts-on-a-new-coronavirus-test-and-on-testing

For this assay, those come out to a sensitivity of 97.1% (positive results detected when there should have been a positive) and a specificity of 98.5% (negative results when there should indeed have been a negative). Flipping those around, you’ll see that about 1.5 to 3% of the time, you will tell someone who’s infected that they’re not, or tell someone who’s not infected that they are. That’s about what you can expect for a test that sells for $5 and takes 15 minutes to read out with no special equipment, but such tests (if used properly) can be very valuable.