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Quick Covid question about multiple tests


PrincessMommy
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My BIL has covid.  His first test was taken at a walk-in clinic.  It still hasn't come in.  When he landed in the hospital he got the quick test and it was positive. 

Will he be counted 2x as positive?

I have a cousin who had the test 3x in the hospital and all were negative (which surprised everyone including her drs)

Are all 3 negatives counted or just one for state statistics?

I'm curious how the statisticians are dealing with people who had multiple tests.

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The short answer is all tests for one person counts only once. So if you test positive 15 times you are only counted in the statistics once.

I will look for a source but I've seen it stated on this board (I think) and a few other places.

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Just now, Moonhawk said:

The short answer is all tests for one person counts only once. So if you test positive 15 times you are only counted in the statistics once.

I will look for a source but I've seen it stated on this board (I think) and a few other places.

Thank you!!    I wasn't sure how to search for such a question.   I don't follow many of the covid threads here for..reasons.   

 

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59 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

My BIL has covid.  His first test was taken at a walk-in clinic.  It still hasn't come in.  When he landed in the hospital he got the quick test and it was positive. 

Will he be counted 2x as positive?

I have a cousin who had the test 3x in the hospital and all were negative (which surprised everyone including her drs)

Are all 3 negatives counted or just one for state statistics?

I'm curious how the statisticians are dealing with people who had multiple tests.

I believe it depends on the state. For a while here I believe we counted a positive once, but counted each negative. 

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Hmm, I'm sorry to hear that. Apparently my information is AZ -based:

https://www.12news.com/article/news/verify/verify-contrary-to-social-media-claims-theres-no-evidence-arizona-is-double-counting-positive-tests-for-coronavirus/75-fbf8ad46-a2a8-4565-aa5f-0b313978bd7b

"

Arizona Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ refuted the claim of double-counting at a news conference June 25.  

“We are aware the people will get multiple tests,” she said. “We work very carefully to de-duplicate. Each case is a unique individual.”

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It depends. Texas does not de-duplicate test results that come from private labs.  I would hope that private labs de-duplicate the data, but I don't know if that is happening here.  Even if Acme Private Lab de-duplicates their own data, they would have no way to know if a patient went to Gizmo Private Lab and got tested there, so duplication could still happen.   

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5 hours ago, PrincessMommy said:

My BIL has covid.  His first test was taken at a walk-in clinic.  It still hasn't come in.  When he landed in the hospital he got the quick test and it was positive. 

Will he be counted 2x as positive?

I have a cousin who had the test 3x in the hospital and all were negative (which surprised everyone including her drs)

Are all 3 negatives counted or just one for state statistics?

I'm curious how the statisticians are dealing with people who had multiple tests.

I think some states were counting differently to others according to the Covid project.  Some were counting tests positive and some were counting people.  I don’t know if that’s been cleaned up yet.  I think public testing was ok but some private testing facilities weren’t separating it out.

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7 hours ago, MissLemon said:

It depends. Texas does not de-duplicate test results that come from private labs.  I would hope that private labs de-duplicate the data, but I don't know if that is happening here.  Even if Acme Private Lab de-duplicates their own data, they would have no way to know if a patient went to Gizmo Private Lab and got tested there, so duplication could still happen.   

exactly. Because of privacy laws here in America I don't know if the companies would have any way to know who is who.

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