PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Coronavirus: Screening (10 December 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of false positive covid-19 test results on (a) the overall number of covid-19 cases in the UK and (b) subsequent covid-19 policy decisions.

Asked by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)

The current tests are very specific and the risk of false positives is extremely low. Independent confirmatory testing of positive samples indicates a test specificity that exceeds 99.3%, or a false positive rate of 1% and additional guidance has been provided to laboratories to reduce the rate even further.

Answered by:
Helen Whately (Conservative)
3 February 2021