WITHDRAWN: Potential false-positive rate among the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' in close contacts of COVID-19 patients [discuss]

When the infection rate of the close contacts and the sensitivity and specificity of reported results were taken as the point estimates, the positive predictive value of the active screening was only 19.67%, in contrast, the false-positive rate of positive results was 80.33%. The multivariate-probabilistic sensitivity analysis results supported the base-case findings, with a 75% probability for the false-positive rate of positive results over 47%. Conclusions: In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832

Editor office’s response for Ahead of Print article withdrawn The article “Potential false-positive rate among the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ in close contacts of COVID-19 patients” was under strong discussion after pre-published. Questions from the readers mainly focused on the article’s results and conclusions were depended on theoretical deduction, but not the field epidemiology data and further researches were needed to prove the current theory. Based on previous discussions, the article was decided to be offline by the editorial board from the pre-publish lists.

Objective: As the prevention and control of COVID-19continues to advance, the active nucleic acid test screening in the close contacts of the patients has been carrying out in many parts of China. However, the false-positive rate of positive results in the screening has not been reported up to now. But to clearify the false-positive rate during screening is important in COVID-19 control and prevention.

Methods: Point values and reasonable ranges of the indicators which impact the false-positive rate of positive results were estimated based on the information available to us at present. The false-positive rate of positive results in the active screening was deduced, and univariate and multivariate-probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to understand the robustness of the findings.

Takeaway:

“Conclusions: In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832";

Article date March 5. Is there an update?

Many “false positives” and also noted that a lot of the tests from China may have already been “pre-exposed” to Chinese Virus, AKA Covid 19.

Norski

Your link has a typo. Correct link is:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832

Apparently the article was withdrawn. Title is now:

[WITHDRAWN: Potential false-positive rate among the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' in close contacts of COVID-19 patients].

Editor office’s response for Ahead of Print article withdrawn The article “Potential false-positive rate among the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ in close contacts of COVID-19 patients” was under strong discussion after pre-published. Questions from the readers mainly focused on the article’s results and conclusions were depended on theoretical deduction, but not the field epidemiology data and further researches were needed to prove the current theory. Based on previous discussions, the article was decided to be offline by the editorial board from the pre-publish lists.

Key Points

Nationally, the percent of laboratory specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories continued to decrease and is now low.
ILI activity continued to decrease nationally but remains elevated.
Recent changes in healthcare seeking behavior, including increasing use of telemedicine and recommendations to limit emergency department (ED) visits to severe illness, as well as increasing levels of social distancing, are affecting the number of persons with ILI and their reasons for seeking care in outpatient and ED settings.
Laboratory confirmed influenza-associated hospitalization rates for the U.S. population overall are higher than most recent seasons and rates for children 0-4 years and adults 18-49 years are the highest CDC has on record for these age groups, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Hospitalization rates for school-aged children (5-17 years) are higher than any recent regular season but remain lower than rates experienced by this age group during the pandemic.
The percent of deaths associated with pneumonia and influenza is above the epidemic threshold. The increase is due to an increase in pneumonia deaths rather than influenza deaths and likely reflects COVID-19 activity.
166 influenza-associated deaths in children have been reported so far this season. This number is high compared to recent seasons, but remains lower than the 2017-2018 season during which 188 pediatric deaths were reported.
CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 39 million flu illnesses, 410,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths from flu.
Antiviral medications are an important adjunct to flu vaccine in the control of influenza. Almost all (>99%) of the influenza viruses tested this season are susceptible to the four FDA-approved influenza antiviral medications recommended for use in the U.S. this season.
With ongoing declines in influenza activity and the continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on outpatient ILI and P&I mortality data, this will be the final week of a full FluView report. More detailed interpretation of data from these systems can be found in COVIDView starting next week (week 15).

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

Your link has a typo. Correct link is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832 Apparently the article was withdrawn. Title is now: [WITHDRAWN: Potential false-positive rate among the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' in close contacts of COVID-19 patients]....

All that is in the post by the OP, and the link in the reply by Norski is the same article except it has a " mark included in it, which ~~broke the Internet~~ invalidates it.

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