Orange County inflated its coronavirus test numbers by mistakenly including antibody tests, officials say

Orange County inflated its coronavirus test numbers by mistakenly including antibody tests, officials say

Combining the number of serology and diagnostic tests could make the proportion of positive tests seem smaller, and the positivity rate less severe, to someone looking at the data if officials don’t specify the number of each test, said Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UC Irvine. “You can’t lump both of these tests together when you’re trying to determine how many new cases we have,” she said. “If you’re trying to understand countywide how many people have ever had coronavirus ever, then you could lump the two together.” [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]