Canadian study reveals rate of false positives from rapid antigen tests
TORONTO -- As provinces rely more heavily on rapid antigen tests as part of their strategy to curb the spread of COVID-19, there have been concerns over the possibility of false positive results. Canadian researchers have produced new data shedding light on the likelihood of such events.
Researchers from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management published their peer-reviewed findings in the journal JAMA earlier this month. They looked at the results of more than 900,000 rapid antigen tests conducted over 537 workplaces in Canada between January and October 2021.
During this period, Canada had two significant waves of COVID-19 driven by the Delta variant. A total of 1,322 positive results were logged with rapid tests. Of these cases, 1,103 also had data from a PCR test to compare against.
In total, 462 rapid test results, or 0.05 per cent of the 900,000 results, resulted in false positives. This represents 42% the positive test results in the study.
