Talk:COVID-19 testing/Archive 3

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Copyedit and restructure

First pass complete. Feedback encouraged.

  • Already much fluff and outdated material removed. Word count down from 9800 to 6800.
  • Created a History section and moved a bunch of historical info there.
  • The national section has a bunch of stuff that is not about testing. Didn't want to remove it without discussion, but I think it should go.
  • The testing statistics tables are now outdated and misleading. Including them is also a long-term maintenance issue, as the change daily. I appreciate the huge effort in creating them, with the truly incredible number of sources involved. However, I propose they be eliminated in favor of links to one or more of the sites that regularly publish this data.
  • Much of the article is not specific to COVID-19. I suggest moving it to Viral disease testing.

Second pass next. Lfstevens (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

BringBackTheStats (talk) 07:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC) BringBackTheStats BringBackTheStats (talk) 07:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC) I have no idea what I'm doing here as in I don't understand how this all works. This is my first time writing something on Wikipedia. I'm a very long time user of Wikipedia but I've never felt the urge to open an account before even though I do read through Edits on a regular basis but I've had to open an account to protest as I'm really angry about one of your edits or at least I hope you or someone else can read this and fix it ASAP. I don't understand what this means so if I'm doing it wrong, I apologise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signatures

I've been logging these Testing by Country testing stats on a daily basis since they first appeared on this page at the beginning of March. This table is the only reason I log in to this page every night. I would propose that the Testing Statistics By Country table section is not outdated, as all of it is not outdated. Some of it is outdated but only some. Roughly a third of the countries listed are updated on a daily or at least weekly basis, a third between weekly and monthly and a third may not release any more testing figures e.g. the UK stopped releasing it's hospital recovery figures on the 4th April and has not updated since but although outdated, the figures from the 4th of April are the latest release of UK recovery figures and that tells a story in itself. Some of the testing stats are outdated and some may never be updated ( but these are the latest stats from these countries or the best testing figures by country that users are going to find in table form ), some countries only release figures daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Some countries figures are updated after two weeks, then it might be three or sometimes four weeks until the next update. Not every country is a first world country buzzing with data centres and the latest techno gizmos with which to log in the latest up to the second stats. There's so much to glean from this table. When put into a spreadsheet with populations added and sorted, you can tell which countries are making an effort in their testing, which countries have placed less importance, which have the highest rate of infections, infections per head of population, etc, etc. The lack of information from a particular country can tell you as much about a country's approach to Coronavirus testing as an up to date statistic. This page is the only page that I could find with a table of each country's testing statistics that is easily copied into a spreadsheet. OurWorldIndata do not produce a daily table, just a table with all the testing stats but not presented in this way. I can't find anywhere else with this presentation of these stats. Instead of deleting this table, all that is needed is a disclaimer note to say that 'This section needs to be updated by contributors on a more regular basis. ' or something like that. If you've got a link to this data presented in a similar table then post it or open up a new Wikipedia page with this table as it really deserves it's own page. If it wasn't important, I probably wouldn't have bothered to open an account but this table is important and to deprive other users of Wikipedia of information that is so valuable, well I find that shocking. To delete this table is vandalism.

I hope that someone reads this, knows show to change it and reinstates this table.

BringBackTheStats (talk) 09:01, 23 June 2020 (UTC)BringBackTheStatsBringBackTheStats (talk) 09:01, 23 June 2020 (UTC) I was just looking through the original pages from early March. The table used to be at the top as this was the most important info on the page. Originally, I started logging the stats on the 9th of March and there were only 25 countries listed. By the 11th that was up to 33, 12th of March there were 46 countries listed, 13th of March there were 48 listed as more and more countries got infected. The table was not as it looks now if you look into the edits of these early pages and click Show to show the Testing table. Back then there were only four columns, Country, Total Tests, As Of and Tests per Million not the full table that is being displayed on these early pages now i.e. early versions of the table are not shown now and the statistics that show the early spread of the biggest pandemic of the past hundred years look to be lost to future generations from Wikipedia forever. I don’t know how that’s happened but it’s quite unforgivable. Over time the testing statistics got moved further and further down the page as it seems that testing for coronavirus isn’t important anymore and the page lost it’s original meaning until it has become what it is now. Now the numbers are at the bottom of the page. I can’t find anything on this page relating to the importance of testing levels. Why not remove the statistics table on the page on this link below as well as a lot of these statistics are outdated as well? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory

If there’s something that needs to be edited on the Testing page it’s this, under the heading Russia in the National Responses section where it says, ‘Antibody testing was carried out on 3,200 Moscow doctors. finding 20% immunity.’ Maybe I’ve missed some new news but as far as I know no-one has shown yet that infection provides immunity against CoViD-19. Not yet anyway.

Hi BBTS! Thanks for the extended reply. The effort you made to keep it going is truly astonishing. As you can see, before I removed the tables, I talked about it here and asked for feedback. I got none so I proceeded. I added a source for daily international stats to the top of the section. It's from worldometer. Check it out. I still think removing it was the right call. The data is easily available and this changes saves enormous amounts of work. Again I appreciate all you've done for this article. Also, I welcome the thoughts of other editors on this or any other of the changes I have proposed. And yes, other articles have problems of their own. I can only address a tiny fraction of them. Lfstevens (talk) 03:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC)


Thank you for replying and I apologise if this is long. I see the table is back ( I wish I’d seen it last night and saved me the work involved in writing and researching this but that’s the way it goes ) and for that I am very thankful but I’ll post this reply to your comment anyway as the country lists below may be of help to those who can Edit this page. It’ll save that person a lot of work if anyone needs to trawl through the data sets mentioned below and these two lists of countries are ever needed for a check reference. Hopefully if anyone thinks about deleting the table again, they’ll have read this first.

I didn’t notice any flag on the main Article page to say that information is about to be deleted. As far as I can tell, you proposed this change about 21:00 pm on the 20th June and removed the only testing stats table on Wikipedia and the only testing statistics in this format on the entire internet on the 23rd June. I think any major proposed changes should be flagged with a note or something for a couple of weeks of proposal time before action. I’ve spent the last few days looking again for a similar table. I started recording the daily case and death figures from the Wikipedia ‘2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak’ page on the 16th of January and originally gave up looking for easily comprehensible testing statistics table about a fortnight later until finally there was a link from the Wuhan page to the CoVID Testing stats page with the testing statistics that I was looking for. Some of the statistics on the Wikipedia table could be updated more regularly for sure and I would be willing to help once I knew what I’m doing.

You have now replaced the testing table in Wikipedia ( Tests and positive tests stats for 125 countries ) with a link to statistics that stopped being valuable some time ago as they don’t include a lot of countries and have no positive test results statistics, only number of tests carried out. I’ve been searching a long time and searched a lot of websites looking for a table of testing statistics. Lots of graphs and fancy graphics all over the internet but no plain and simple table anywhere, except Wikipedia. A testing statistics table with test numbers and especially results is not available elsewhere. I’m happy to be proved wrong but if you can find such a table then please share it. There are two .csv Worldometer files that I can find in their master data set .zip file, ‘covid-testing-all-observations.csv’ ( 91 countries listed as I counted but some not up to date, e.g. Brazil ) and ‘owid-covid-data,csv’ the most up to date file ( 211 countries listed - 75 countries with test number statistics and 136 listed with no testing stats at all ). Neither of these Worldometer files include positive test results statistics.

Countries that have testing statistics listed in the Wikipedia table but not on Worldometer or not recent on Worldometer include -

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Cyprus, Grenada, Guinea, Iraq, Jamaica, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, North Korea, North Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Palestine, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela.

Countries not included in either set of statistics include -

Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo, Curacao, DRC, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Rep, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Faroe Islands, Falkland islands, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Gibraltar, Greenland, Guam, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jersey, Jordan, Lesotho, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montserrat, Namibia, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Northern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sint Maarten (Dutch part), Somalia, South Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Timor, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands, Vatican, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia,

Some statistics such as Iceland and Israel are more up to date than Worldometer.

Countries that update testing figures on a weekly basis, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Holland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand.

This page was originally about coronavirus testing in each country and also the logistics of what countries were doing to carry out tests. Well obviously, I think the testing table should be put in it’s rightful place, back at the top of the page where it used to be, instead of as it is now, relegated over time to just a small footnote ( now without any actual statistics I may add !! ) at the bottom of the page and then let’s see if it once again gets updated on a regular basis or not. There used to be some country area tables on this page as well but I don’t know when that disappeared. I’m not particularly interested but people from the United States, Italy and Canada I think it was, might be. They were interesting as it roughly demonstrated the spread over time across each country. It’s essential that testing is carried out to help to bring this pandemic to an end or at least keep it under some sort of control. Very few people understand viral testing science but I think that most people understand a simple table. I plead that it is returned and would be better displayed, sorted by tests per million as default instead of number of tests.

I’ve spent a night doing this as the other data sets aren't the most user friendly. I feel that the testing statistics are very important or will be more so a few years down the line. To all editors out there, please don’t remove something without researching if there’s anything better to replace it with first. It’s usually difficult to find articles or statistics better than those on Wikipedia and that’s because everyone does such a fantastic job, although I did like the look of the Indonesian government’s coronavirus statistics website interface in researching this reply. 

- Once again, a heartfelt, relieved, thank you.

BringBackTheStats (talk) 06:02, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks again for your careful analysis: Some points:

- WP is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an online database. I appreciate that the data collected in the table may be unique to the internet, but that doesn't make it a fit here. WP:RECENTISM isn't about this directly, but it does show that we're not trying to be an up to the minute resource.

- I waited several days for feedback before proceeding. That is plenty of time for a response, especially since no decision is final.

- On the specific point of lack of data on positive tests, it seems more likely that what is of concern is the number of cases, which approximates the former and is contained in other datasets. The point about missing countries is valid, but probably should be addressed to the other databases. At most, perhaps a table of minor countries would be a net benefit.

- I checked the first 5 countries you said were absent/dated on worldometer. They were all there. Afghanistan shows 70k tests, while the WP table shows 38k. Which one is out of date?

- The table massively increases the size of the page, due to all the carefully curated references. Now that the table is in a template, the earlier problem of long save times/timeouts while saving is mostly gone. But the table alone nearly doubles the already large number of references.

- Most people read WP on their phones, which isn't a great way to look at large tables.

- Agree that some of the current material is not specific to COVID-19. Once I'm happy with the content, I'm going to propose that generic material move elsewhere. Not quite there yet, but soon. Lfstevens (talk) 19:30, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

NEJM article on NIH RADx initiative

This WP:MEDRS article has good background about testing generally and also about the parts of the specific program it discusses.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr2022263
Rapid Scaling Up of Covid-19 Diagnostic Testing in the United States — The NIH RADx Initiative
Bruce J. Tromberg, Tara A. Schwetz, Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, et al.
New England Journal of Medicine
July 22, 2020
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsr2022263

--Nbauman (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Annals of Internal Medicine review article

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1301
Reviews
2 June 2020
Diagnostic Testing for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome–Related Coronavirus 2
A Narrative Review
Matthew P. Cheng, Jesse Papenburg, Michaël Desjardins, Sanjat Kanjilal, Caroline Quach, Michael Libman, Sabine Dittrich, Cedric P. Yansouni
https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-1301
Key Summary Points

  • The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the essential role of diagnostics in the control of communicable diseases.
  • Laboratory-based molecular assays for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in respiratory specimens are the current reference standard for COVID-19 diagnosis, but point-of-care technologies and serologic immunoassays are rapidly emerging.
  • Early, massive deployment of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics for case finding helped curb the epidemic in several countries.
  • Urgent clinical and public health needs now drive an unprecedented global effort to increase testing capacity.

--Nbauman (talk) 21:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Testing in Africa

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252104/
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31093-X.pdf

Access to lifesaving medical resources for African countries: COVID-19 testing and response, ethics, and politics.
Kavanagh MM, Erondu NA, Tomori O, Dzau VJ, Okiro EA, Maleche A, Aniebo IC, Rugege U, Holmes CB, Gostin LO.
Lancet. 2020 May 30;395(10238):1735-1738.
doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31093-X.
Epub 2020 May 7.
--Nbauman (talk) 22:01, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Can this study be added to the article? It is important data.WillieHowardCO67 (talk) 15:02, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Testing and imaging

Though CT images lack specificity are more sensitive and have less human errors. Specific pattern and predominantly peripheral and posterior location can help to minimize errors of swab test where chances of false negative are much more. Sanehooma.1.n (talk) 13:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

On false positives

From French professor Raoult:

Didier Raoult (2020-08-18). Ce que nous apprennent les données de mortalité [What mortality data teach us] (Interview) (in French). Marseille Institut hospitalo-universitaire. 12:02 minutes in. Retrieved 2020-08-18.

[…] il faut faire attention aussi aux tests diagnostiques parce que les tests diagnostiques ont une qualité qui dépend — en particulier la PCR, de la qualité de l'interprétation, et de la qualité du test. Donc nous sur les gens que l'on re-teste qui ont été positifs, on a eu 838 personnes depuis le 1er juillet qui sont arrivés avec des tests positifs à l'extérieur; on a trouvé que 21% d'entre eux étaient en fait négatifs. Donc ça veut dire que simplement il faut faire attention: on a mesuré, nous, la significativité de la PCR en la comparant à la culture, et en quantifiant ce que cela signifiait, donc quand on est au delà d'une certaine courbe, des Ct qui pour nous sont à 35, eh bien il ne faut pas interpréter cela comme des résultats positifs, parce que ça-n'en-n'est-pas. Alors il faut faire attention: cela représente moins d'une molécule par test, donc ça n'est plus significatif, ça n'a pas de signification. Il faut faire attention parce qu'on peut avoir des résultats qui sont positifs mais extrêmement distants[?], mais ça c'est comme la mémoire de l'eau: on ne sait plus ce que ça teste, mais en tout cas c'est pas du virus. Alors donc il faut faire attention à ces interprétations, il faut faire attention à vérifier les résultats positifs avant de prendre des mesures drastiques, et encore une fois: pour nous, dans l'ensemble, sans tri, entre les différents laboratoires, il y en a un sur cinq qui est un faux positif. Donc il faut faire attention à pondérer l'ensemble de ces données.[…] we must be careful with the diagnostic tests because their quality depends — in particular the PCR test — on the interpretation of its result, and on the quality of the test itself. Of the people who have tested positive elsewhere, whom we re-test, we've had 838 since July 1st, among whom 21% of them were in fact negative. This simply means that we have to be careful: our team has mesured the significance of the PCR by comparing it to the culture, and by quantifying what that indicated, so when we are beyond a certain curve, with Ct values for us here at 35, well we mustn't interpret that as positive results, because they-are-not. So we must pay attention, since we're talking about less than one molecule per test, which is insignificant and no longer means anything. We have to watch out because we can get positive results, yet extremely distant[?], but this is like the memory of water: we no longer know what it's testing, but at any rate that's not virus. So we must beware those interpretations, we must ensure to verify the positive results prior to taking drastic mesures, and i repeat: over here, overall, with no particular selection, between the various labs, 1 out of 5 is a false positive. We must make sure to balance all that data.

—Jerome Potts (talk) 19:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Antigen tests - text to replace the section

Antigen tests are lateral flow tests that use antibodies to detect a virus's proteins. The tests are simpler, cheaper and faster than PCR and thus can be widely deployed for point-of-care testing or home-testing. Antigen tests are less sensitive than PCR tests, but have high sensitivity when viral load is high. Since high viral loads are associated with contagiousness, antigen tests have been proposed as non-diagnostic public health tools that can quickly and easily detect when a person is contagious. Example antigen tests: Quidel's "Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA", ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.64.69.127 (talk) 09:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2020

The table labelled "The location of sample collection impact on sensitivity for COVID-19 in 205 Wuhan patients" needs to state that "n" is the number of specimens testing positive. Solarmcpanel (talk) 11:42, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I've just specified the total number of specimens tested instead to make it clear that there were unequal amounts of each. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 14:33, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Disease/Virus confusion

In the lead, the name of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) links to the disease (COVID-19). Suggest linking to the appropriate page (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). ILTFP (talk) 18:22, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done. @ILTFP. Seagull123 Φ 20:34, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

New Yorker story

Typical comprehensive New Yorker story explaining why tests with a quick turnaround are hard to get in the US even though places like the Broad Institute could be doing 100,000 tests a day.

https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/we-can-solve-the-coronavirus-test-mess-now-if-we-want-to

We Can Solve the Coronavirus-Test Mess Now—If We Want To
The key to taming the pandemic will be both a new commitment to “assurance testing” and a new vision of what public health really means.

By Atul Gawande
The New Yorker
September 2, 2020

--Nbauman (talk) 06:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

BGI Group's offer to build testing site in California

Here's a story from the Washington Post about how in early April, BGI Group offered to build -- at cost -- the world's largest COVID-19 testing site in California, in 2 weeks, and train Americans to operate it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/china-bgi-california-testing/
California rejected Chinese company’s push to help with coronavirus testing. Was that the right move?
Advisers told the state to steer clear of BGI, underscoring U.S.-China tech tension
Jeanne Whalen and Elizabeth Dwoskin
Washington Post
July 2, 2020
As California raced to expand coronavirus testing this spring, advisers to the state noticed one company pitching particularly hard to assist: China’s BGI Group.

The company’s U.S. subsidiary and one of BGI’s partners were approaching city, county and state officials with offers to sell supplies and help set up entire labs, proposing to export a rapid testing model that they said had helped contain China’s outbreak.

In the end, the advisers recommended that California exercise caution about BGI and its U.S. subsidiary, CGI; one of the advisers recommended avoiding them all together....

“We propose to establish the world’s largest COVID-19 testing facility through a public private partnership," said an April 5 proposal that BGI’s U.S. subsidiary sent state officials, the mayor of San Jose and task force members, including Kocher. “By working with the state’s existing CLIA testing labs, this operation could be running tests in less than 2 weeks,” it added. --Nbauman (talk) 06:38, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Antigen testing

Is it worth adding this or should we wait until it actually rolls out [1] [2] [3]? IMO it should be added if it actually rolls out on a wide scale since while individual countries rolling out random tests can be too minor to mention, a widescale roll out which involves the WHO is significant enough to mention. Nil Einne (talk) 09:40, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 October 2020

This is regarding the Testing methods for COVID-19 that have been used widely. Also more information regarding the persistence of antibodies providing "immunity passports" to the recovered COVID-19 patients. Asiyazaidi (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. -ink&fables «talk» 03:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Update testing data for spain

The last data stated on the table is from 8th september, but it does exist more update information on this webpage, under the name "Pruebas de laboratorio", which is a PDF file with the following information:

Updated the 17th september: - Total PCR: 8,582,722 - Fast Antibody test: 2,351,698 - Other Antibody: 886,085

Which makes a total of: 11,820,505

It would be great if someone could update this info.

--Viferico (talk) 12:37, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

 Already done -ink&fables «talk» 03:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Sensitivity and Specificity

(Minor note: This section in the article currently starts with "Accuracy is measured in terms of specificity and selectivity". Nowhere else in the article does the word "selectivity" appear again.. I assume this is an error, and it should actually read "specificity and sensitivity".) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.52.126.31 (talk) 05:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

The article doesn't actually say any Covid-19 test's false negative and false positive rates (sensitivity and specificity) despite these being a test's most important features. It just talks about hypothetical rates and the Bayes's Rule problem of getting the posterior probability right.

Googling, it's very hard to find these numbers, despite their importance. Here is some material that might go in.

Fast, low-cost testing is essential for averting a second wave of Covid-19 by MENACHEM FROMER, PAUL VARGHESE, and ROBERT M. CALIFFSEPTEMBER 23, 2020 notes that Abbot Labs's 5-minute test has a 1.5% false positive rate (a 98.5% "specificity").

This is crucial information for the public. If a university is using that test, with its 1.5% false positive rate, or a similar one (and that is a reputable test from a big old respectable company), and is putting 1.5% of its students in quarantine as a result, telling them they have covid, but don't explain test error, students conclude that covid-19 is a harmless infection with no symptoms and no harm, that even precautions such as not coughing on your grandmother are unimportant, and that they will be immune since they had covid already. editeur24 (talk) 14:36, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


Is the sensitivity and specificity section correct? From the "90% specific" example, the sensitivity and specificity article, and the references, it looks like 95% specificity means 95% of the 95 negatives are correctly identified, and for a PPV of 50% that would be 4.75% each of false and true positives from 100 tests, and sensitivity of 95% (or have I misunderstood?) The mention of "coin toss" should be removed, that would be expected to produce 50% positive. According to the source, the percentages after retesting are for 95% specificity, but 90% sensitivity for both tests (also that this is based on them being orthogonal, not just repeating the same test). Peter James (talk) 21:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

“Even relatively high sensitivity rates can produce high rates of false negatives in populations with low incidence rates.” from the sensitivity example seems incorrect. I believe that should read: “... with high incidence rates.” The higher the incidence, the more false negatives for a fixed sensitivity. Also, the statement misuses the term “rates of false negatives.” The rate would not change with population incidence. I believe it should read: “... high numbers of false negatives...” Would somebody with the ability to edit this please verify and change this sentence?

As the other editor said above, the sentence “Even relatively high sensitivity rates can produce high rates of false negatives in populations with low incidence rates” is incorrect and it should be fixed. I think in the next paragraph we could add a similar sentence "Even relatively high specificity rates can produce high numbers of false positives in populations with low incidence rates". Both sentences together show the problem with false positive and false negative results.

Semi-protected edit request on 25 October 2020

The value for the number of tested cases in the Netherlands in table "COVID-19 testing statistics by country" need to be increased by 359,833.

Source: "Epidemiologische situatie COVID-19 in Nederland" (PDF). Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu [National Institute for Public Health and the Environment] (in Dutch). 2 June 2020. Retrieved 25 October 2020.

Explanation: The number of tests (cases) done in the Netherlands currently in the "COVID-19 testing statistics by country" table are from the 1st of June onwards and is hence not complete. From the report on the 2nd of June (see link), the number of tests (cases) between the 9th of March until the 1st of June (when adding the numbers on page 19) were 359,833 and should be added to the current value.

The Source given is from the government agency which keeps track of the number of tests.

123reks4 (talk) 16:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

 Done BJackJS talk 18:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

"External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results."

The study below addresses the problem of false positives on RTPCR test; perhaps something of the above should be reported in this article.

"External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results."
zenodo.org/record/4298004
cormandrostenreview.com

--5.170.117.113 (talk) 00:13, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Video on testing

Hi all. I've uploaded this video ('What to expect at a walk-through testing centre. Pubished 7 Dec 2020.') made by the Welsh Government, onto Commons, which shows a woman arriving at a Covid-19 testing center, doing the test, and leaving the center. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 09:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

South Korea's testing data unit is cases, not the samples.

In tables in testing statistics by country, South Korea's testing unit had been cases, but it is now marked as samples. On Sep. 21, Jeong Eun-kyeong, head of KDCA(former KCDC), stated that the total tested/new tested and etc. are excluding repeated tests.News article — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kmrene (talk • contribs) 00:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Full dates in the Table

Could someone please add the years to the Date field in the Table? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:7932:5700:55A2:8189:DCFF:204B (talk) 23:40, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done — UnladenSwallow (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 February 2021

Footnote 132 ("Heartbreak in the Streets of Wuhan") is being used to support these two assertions: 1. RT-PCR is the most accurate diagnostic test.[132] 2. Early in March, China reported accuracy problems with its PCR tests.[132]

The article does not support assertion 1 at all. That entire sentence is unnecessary and unsupported, therefore it should be removed. 2603:7000:3200:3AE7:312B:CD05:6A21:DE73 (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done I edited claim 1 based on the source I added, and removed claim 2 as I could not source it at this time. Thanks! A S U K I T E   21:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Adding a recent review article to Further Reading Section

Dear All,

Below please find a recent review article published in one of the most prominent journals in the field of clinical laboratory medicine on the application of molecular diagnostic assays for COVID-19: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408363.2021.1884640

In case you think this paper can add to the contents of this Wikipedia page, please add it to the Further Readings Sections.--GeneticsFeed (talk) 14:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The citation for this paper is:
I wonder whether it would be better to just use it as a source in the article.
GeneticsFeed, I'm going to assume that your use of the COI tag means that you're either a subject-matter expert or that you know one. Can you please tell me if there's anything obviously wrong/outdated in this article? If you look it over and find yourself thinking "I can't believe that this article is still saying ____" or "That's wrong", then I'd consider it a favor if you just pasted copies of the offending content on the talk page so we could see about correcting or removing them. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Thank you for your note. As you pointed out I'm a subject-matter expert. In fact there is nothing wrong with this publication. It is a recent review article and has been published in a high quality peer-reviewed publication. It can also be used as a reference instead of the large number of pre-print references that have not undergone peer review. GeneticsFeed (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@GeneticsFeed, I'm sorry, I must not have been clear. I want to know what's wrong with the Wikipedia article. I assume that there are errors, and I'd really appreciate it if you could point out the most glaring of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much WhatamIdoing for the clarification. I misunderstood. Besides my suggestion to add this paper to the further reading section as an updated resource for information regarding the molecular diagnostic assays for COVID-19, there are some statements in the "causes of test error" section which are not supported by any evidence. These facts have been widely discussed in the "Quality Control" section of the mentioned article. GeneticsFeed (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

@GeneticsFeed, thanks for pointing out that section. I've removed most of it. I hadn't actually given the article a good look for a long while, and this is probably just the first step in a long clean up process.
Thanks for sharing the source. So far, I've used it to add a summary at the top of the section that's mostly about RT-PCR. To be absolutely clear, I'm using your source because it's a review article (Wikipedia's favorite kind of paper) from a top-tier journal,[4] and not because you've been so kind as to help me figure out which problems were the most glaring in the article.
That said, I'm really grateful for you telling me both about the high-quality source and about the problems in the article. Please continue to post suggestions here. Also, if you ever see problems in a Wikipedia article that you don't think you should edit directly, or if you need help, then the regulars at Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine would love to hear from you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Will certainly do.GeneticsFeed (talk) 12:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Split proposal

I propose splitting out the WP:PROSELINE of a ==History== section to a new article called Development of COVID-19 tests. I think this will let this article focus on the tests as they are, without having the events of each day or week for the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the way. I've written a mini-intro to that section, and I think the best approach is to leave that summary here, add {{main|Development of COVID-19 tests}} to the top, and move everything else to the new page. Does that sound okay to everyone else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. It's long enough to warrant its own article, and would make the article easier to read. 5a5ha seven (talk | contribs)[citation needed] 15:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
There being no immediate objections, I've made this split. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

National responses

The § National responses section is poorly written: it's a random set of factoids about a random set of countries. The section should be rewritten or removed entirely. If anyone attempts to rewrite it, I suggest: (a) taking a global view instead of looking at countries separately (in other words, get rid of subsections); (b) focusing on different strategies chosen and major milestones achieved in deployment of tests instead of listing random data points. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 21:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect test specificity definition

Under methods > Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test the following statement is made: "The term sensitivity refers to the capacity of a test to identify all infected people, while specificity is the ability of a test to detect a particular virus"

This is not the common meaning of specificity, and even if it is used this way in the source, it will still confuse readers.

Proposed change: "The term sensitivity refers to the capacity of a test to identify all infected people, while specificity is the ability of a test to detect those that are not infected." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:4781:2DA0:6040:8368:C30D:5C1A (talk) 15:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 May 2021

Change "Use Commonwealth English" to "EngvarB" per tfd outcome Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#To_convert 81.2.252.231 (talk) 03:02, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Run n Fly (talk) 18:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 August 2021

Immediately after "Antibody tests The body responds to a viral infection by producing antibodies that [help: delete "help"] neutralize the virus."[X] and

""Neutralization assay Neutralization assays assess whether sample antibodies prevent viral infection in test cells." [X]

it would be helpful for readers who do not know much about virus neutralization to cite:

Klasse PJ. Neutralization of Virus Infectivity by Antibodies: Old Problems in New Perspectives. Adv Biol. 2014;2014:157895. doi: 10.1155/2014/157895. Epub 2014 Sep 9. PMID: 27099867; PMCID: PMC4835181.

Likewise after the following passage, it would clarify the issue by adding that comprehensive reference about virus neutralization in general in two places:

"A NAb is an antibody that defends a cell from an infectious particle by neutralizing its biological effects. Neutralization renders the particle no longer infectious or pathogenic.[76][X] A binding antibody binds to the pathogen but the pathogen remains infective; the purpose can be to flag the pathogen for destruction by the immune system.[77]"[X]

But that passage requires several fundamental corrections thus:

A NAb is an antibody that neutralizes the infectivity of a virus particle by blocking its attachment to or entry into a susceptible cell; enveloped viruses, like e.g. SARS-CoV-2, are neutralized by the blocking of steps in the replicative cycle up to and including membrane fusion [76][X]. A non-neutralizing antibody either does not bind to the crucial structures on the virus surface or binds but leaves the virus particle infectious; the antibody may still contribute to the destruction of virus particles or infected cells by the immune system.[77][X] Virus Neutralization (talk) 15:58, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done RFZYNSPY talk 00:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 Note: Thanks for the amazingly thorough and expert edits. Keep 'em coming, Virus Neutralization! RFZYNSPY talk 00:25, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

english project

3rd wave of Corona virus advantage and disadvantage 106.200.166.173 (talk) 16:16, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Typo on page

Widespread is mistyped somewhere. Please fix. 2A02:A459:8FB6:1:D85A:35D4:6A73:41B4 (talk) 14:24, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

The typo is "widepsread". 192.180.91.15 (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 Done RudolfRed (talk) 00:29, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 November 2021

In this sentence

Because SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs days after exposure (and before onset of symptoms) there is an urgent need for frequent surveillance and rapid availability of results.

please add a comma after the parenthetical phrase. It's not ungrammatical, but it's a long enough sentence that a comma helps to break it up. 192.180.91.15 (talk) 23:56, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Itcouldbepossible (talk) 07:55, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Other tests

Someone should add information about Tollotest, which measures viral protease activity and does not fall in any of the categories in this article (rather it's a protease assay, a kind of functional assay).

Physicsjock (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

"Methods" / "Available tests"

Section 1 on "Methods" and section 4 on "Available tests" partially overlap. I suggest that the general theoretical parts of section 4 should be merged into section 1. And details of specific tests could be moved from section 1 to section 4, or they could be discarded if they no longer seem to be notable. JonH (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Some subsections ("Serology (CoLab score) tests", "Breath tests", "Animals") moved from "Available tests" to "Methods"/"Other" because the methods were not described there. Further tidying is possible. JonH (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

It would be great if somebody could create a table listing all tests with the characteristics of each one — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pfrishauf (talk • contribs) 02:07, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Which of the "Available tests" is the PCR test?

It should be mentioned which of the available tests is the so-called "PCR test". The term "PCR test" is the most common, but it isn't mentioned in that list which I find confusing. Apparantly, it is the first test method described here, but I am not sure.--Einar Moses Wohltun (talk) 08:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 April 2020 and 10 June 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Elisawulfsberg.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

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