Edward Deadwood
Well-Known Member
I agree with your conclusion: ie that one of those three reasons are the most likely explanation for this unnecessary cancellation of the Arsenal game, and postponed at Liverpool’s request on the back of their providing this “evidence” to the EFL.Wow, 40 false positive PCR tests. I think the initial thoughts were that it was around 15 LFT false positives but Klipperty has now confirmed them to be PCR tests. What are the odds of that? PCR tests are less likely than an LFT to produce a false positive so the chances of 40 in the same group can only mean that either the tests were faulty, were carried out wrong or the the results were manipulated. Surely the manufacturer would want to investigate to ensure that their product wasn't faulty.
However, nerding out only briefly here, and contrary to the assumption you made above, Lateral Flow Tests producing false positives is very rare (0.03% chance of a single occurrence) * See the United Kingdom Heath Security Agency research published last week.
It’s a common misapprehension which arises, I think, from the slightly concerning tendency of LFTs to regularly produce false negatives.
But LFTs very rarely produce false positives: 3 in 10,000 with Delta, 3 in 100,000 with Omicron.
PCR’s are deemed the “gold standard” of Covid testing simply because they are more sensitive, and pick up slightly lower level infections (less virus needs to be present to trigger a positive) than is necessary with the higher bar (but conveniently rapid) LFTs .
I’ve not read the whole article I’ve mentioned below, but quickly skimmed it and picked out that 180 of 9000 “known to be Covid free participants” in a study produced a false positive using a PCR technique.
By my maths, this demonstrated that (with the PCR technique the researchers investigated) there was a 2% chance of delivering an incorrect (ie false) positive after testing someone previously known to be free of the virus.
One such occurrence is well within the bounds of possibility “just one of those things”. But 40?
The chances of 40 such incidences happening on the run is 0.02 to the power of 40 (ie 0.02 multiplied by itself 40 times in succession).
The percentage chance of that happening independently of seriously faulty equipment, in-club testing procedures and/or lab processing mistakes by their testing partners (if indeed they do outsource - anyone know - or brave enough to ask?)
is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011%
(NB there should be 68 zeros after the decimal point. I’ve not bothered to count)
I cordially invite their Yanky owners to “do the math”.
* study published in the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine this month Jan 2022 and freely available online