The son of a friend is a healthcare worker and received a Covid19 test as a routine measure in his hospital. He tested positive but was told it was a “weak positive” so not to worry (and was kept on the work schedule). I had not heard anything about these tests other than their returning simply a binary positive/negative. Perhaps there is a knowledgeable professional on here who could elucidate? Is there such a thing as weak positive or was that a whitewash? Thanks!
The positive response may be a spectrum on a color chart, and his barely registered, or he may have had a low titer, meaning that he didn’t have a large number of antibodies.
So please correct me if I’m wrong–if a person does not have a large number of antibodies, that could mean a) that his/her virus count is low, a good thing, or b) that his/her immune system was not ramped up to deal with the virus, a bad thing?
I don’t believe they are doing antibody tests at the moment.
The wide spread testing looks for the virus in a nasal swab to see if you are actively infected and shedding the virus. A negative test would show you are not currently infected, but does nothing to show if you have had Covid and are now healthy or if you never had it in the first place.
It could also mean the test was contaminated. I can’t believe he wasn’t retested. I would have expected him to be retested immediately, and if he got the same results, to be put on 24hr. leave, and then tested once more.
I also would expect someone to examine the test and packaging for tears, cracks, or tiny signs of water damage.