The Covid test shows positive even though it's another coronavirus altogether?

[whattheheckactually]

I have a very sensible and clever friend who is a health care professional working with the Covid vaccination trials in the UK.

She mentioned to me that the current covid test picks up other - less dangerous - coronaviruses, eg ones that have been around for years and which we have all caught in the form of a winter cold.

I cannot get my head around this. If correct it raises all sorts of questions, including:

• is this the real reason why we have so many asymptomatic people?
• if someone gets a normal cold, will they test positive for coronavirus and have to isolate, with the impact on their families, jobs, colleagues etc.
• is this the reason why positive numbers are so high?
• is it only certain coronaviruses that can show a positive result?

Or is she wrong altogether?

I know my own family have had two bouts of winter cold symptoms this autumn already but testing revealed we were negative for COVID 19.

It is all so confusing and her statement that the COVID 19 test picks up all sorts of other coronaviruses has sent my head into a spin. As I said, my friend is very level headed and sensible, and she would not want to have scared me (I'm immuno compromised).

Does anyone here have any knowledge about this please?

If a Sr on a ward is pretending to have swabbed patients & not OR possibly filling in forms with staff details & sending off unused swabs (we are swabbed weekly on our ward) then she is both negligent & all kinds of stupid.

It is not possible to submit a swab to the lab without patient (or staff) details - and if you tried to the swab wouldn’t be processed. As a PP said, it’s actually very scary that a Sr could potentially do this & risk a negative patient being moved into a positive bay or ward. Her “experiment” could literally lead to her patient’s death.

It has to be bullshit. And should definitely be reported to the NMC if not.

It is the polar opposite of “clever”.

My cat told me your friend made that up. Since both of our anecdotes are equally valid we will never know which one of them is lying.

@raddledoldmisanthropist
I definitely believe your cat.

@Toothsil, your friend has either genuinely or wilfully misunderstood some stats which were flying around earlier in the year. The link below to the More Or Less discussion will explain further, but in short, no she’s very wrong.
www.bbc.com/news/54270373

I saw a video clip on Facebook the other day of a young man who filmed himself NOT swabbing himself and sealing the unused swab in the bag. He then picked up the video saying 'I have had the result and its positive'. This is being circulated as more proof that covid testing is bullshit . He doesn't even show a positive result he just stands there and declares his alleged result. People were commenting as if this proved it.

Well op didn’t come back!

What’s this cats name!?

Ah, the anti test misinformation spread, really gaining traction on FB this week I have seen.

Extremely dangerous and incorrect.

Look at any major new outlet you like this is listed as one of the pieces of misinformation flying around.

PCR easily detects the difference between different strains of covid19, never mind different coronaviruses.

Honestly, this is such a basic premise of all those tests. It would be completely useless if it could’t pick up covid19, we wouldn’t even bother with it!!
Leave the science to the scientists please!

What I mean to say is it is extremely specific.

The PCR test is very specific - as far as I know you'll get false positives from old/dead virus or contamination, but not from other coronaviruses

Old/dead SARS-Cov-2 I mean, not just any dead virus

What’s this cats name!?

Erm.....tiddles. I promise my cat is just as real as OP's friend.

Leave the science to the scientists please!

Bit unfair. How do you know OP doesn't self-identify as a Scientist?

I don't mean to derail but I never knew L-A was an urban legend! I was told this story 7 years ago by my MIDWIFE of all people! She even wrote it down on paper for me to guess she name that 'one of her patients' was going to use for their baby. I'm shocked, I really liked this midwife and could have been good friends with her in other circumstances and I expect she'll have climbed the career ladder too as she was a very capable womam.
Not to say midwives can't be successful AND bullshitters too but you don't expect it do you!!!???

There really are people called La-a now.

What no-one has ever found is a person who had the name before the Internet myth started doing the rounds. And sites like Snopes have certainly been encouraging people to find the original. But none has ever been found

I work in social care and we are tested weekly. Government guidelines state for our setting that anyone who has tested positive is not to be tested again for 112 days . Im guessing that means you can not be infectious but still have enough virus in you to flag up positive but who knows really

@MsWarrensProfession

Correction 7 October: The piece was corrected to show that 63 out of 1,000 people tested would be true positives if there was a 7% positivity rate and a 0.8% false positive rate

From the BBC article .

That's so interesting, thank you for posting it.

Just a probably thick question, but if that conclusion of 63% true positives was applied to current total UK cases figures, could it have any significant effect on the reported numbers of cases ? ie. That those numbers would be reduced?