# Quick question: False positives and negatives

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [July 16, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460 "2020-07-16T03:27:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460/1 "2020-07-16T03:27:01Z")

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Does anyone know, if you have a cold (which I guess is also a corona virus) and go get tested and it comes back positive, could that be a false positive where you have a cold but NOT the corona virus? Thanks.

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**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460/2 "2020-07-16T03:31:25Z")

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It tests for COVID-19 specifically, not just any old coronavirus.

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**Author:** ![RealityCheck71](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitycheck71/32/3493_2.png) [@RealityCheck71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityCheck71)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460/3 "2020-07-16T05:31:03Z")

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The majority of “common colds” are caused by a rhinovirus. About 15% of colds are caused by a few types of coronavirus. Very early test setups in this pandemic were found unwieldy because they did a generic coronavirus check first before checking specificly for SARS-2. Now, as said above they check for the specific virus right off.

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**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-question-false-positives-and-negatives/915460/4 "2020-07-17T22:45:57Z")

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> [@urbanredneck2](#):
>
> Does anyone know, if you have a cold (which I guess is also a corona virus) and go get tested and it comes back positive, could that be a false positive where you have a cold but NOT the corona virus? Thanks.

Ok, thanks.