I have read that some tests in the USA are v poor quality and give a significant number of false positives
However, in the UK, false positives seem to be about 1% or less,
whereas false negatives - according to NHS advice for staff testing - are about 30%
Heneghan has been saying for months that he thinks that COVID is far less serious than public health experts in the WHO and most countries do
and he seems to oppose local lockdowns, thinks pubs etc are low risk
Of course, false positives affect the statistics far more when rl cases are v low, whereas false negatives do when cases are higher.
However, in the latter case, false negatives could delay the realisation that exponential growth is taking off
So long as deaths and hospitalisations remain low, I wouldn't expect e.g. whole schools rather than classes to close down
Local lockdowns have a high enough threshhold not to be caused by false positives
This was an example of what the false negatives and positives could mean, in an article by statistician David Spiegelhalter a few weeks ago: