Medics cast doubt over accuracy of COVID-19 testing

Top sports medicos have cast serious doubt over the accuracy of COVID-19 testing.

Conor McKenna’s bewildering results have exposed the fallibility of COCID-19 tests

Top sports medicos have cast serious doubt over the accuracy of COVID-19 testing.

Essendon star Conor McKenna’s bewildering sequence of results has exposed the fallibilities of the testing, they declared, as the AFL conducts more than 2000 weekly tests in a bid to keep its season rolling.

Demons doctor Peter Brukner said the accuracy of testing was “significantly” less than 99.9 per cent with more irregularities to be expected.

McKenna’s results mysteriously went from negative, to a “low-level irregularity”, to positive and back to negative in six days.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Professor Brett Sutton, said on Wednesday McKenna’s situation was not uncommon, claiming the Irish speedster was “at the tail end of the infection” before he tested negative “24 hours later”.

But Dr Peter Larkins said he couldn’t comprehend how McKenna could’ve contracted and cleared the virus across the weekend. “You don’t just get it and get rid of it in a three-day period. I don’t know that anybody has documented that about this virus in the community,” Larkins said.

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“It’s very hard to explain he was on the way out when he had three negatives in the 10-11 days before Friday’s irregular test.

“If it turns out (yesterday’s) test was negative it’s a big dilemma because they’ve already made decisions on the basis he had the virus.”

Larkins said the integrity of the testing procedure had to match WADA’s standard so players couldn’t challenge results.

“We have to make sure it’s done properly, where the swab is done in both nostrils, at the back of the nasopharynx ... and done in the throat properly,” Larkins said. “I’d be more concerned about a false negative than a false positive because the consequences of having a false negative test in someone who’s got the virus means other people are going to catch it.”

Herald Sun