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Written question asked by Earl Attlee (Conservative) on Monday, 14 December 2020, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 30 December 2020. It was answered by Lord Bethell (Conservative) on Monday, 1 February 2021 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.


Coronavirus: Screening

Question

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 10 December (HL10848), what steps they have taken reliably to determine the operational false positive rate for polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 mass testing; and how they have made any such determination.

Answer

Polymerase chain reaction tests are very specific and the risk of false positives where the test is reacting to other viruses is extremely low. Independent confirmatory testing of positive samples indicates a test specificity that exceeds 99.3%, or a false positive rate of 1%, and additional guidance has been provided to laboratories to reduce the rate even further.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL11385
Session
2019-21
Related items
Coronavirus: Screening
Thursday, 10 December 2020
Written questions
House of Lords
Subjects
Screening Coronavirus
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk