I know “evidence-based decision-making” is abused and gets a rap, but I don’t think effectively advocating for evidence-less decision-making will make us less wrong
The EU and the UK also have regulatory agencies that require evidence for accepting tests.
Assays should have a sensitivity of 90% or greater for subjects with a Ct < 25.
That means that the test has to has a sensisitivty of 90% for patients with “Very high viral load”
The world is bigger then the US. In a case like this it makes sense to look at other countries who have enough tests for everyone who wants instead of just declaring the task impossible.
This is again a threshold, not comparator, complaint. Ct values are generated by PCR. Instead of using a crosstab for all samples, this approach is to use a crosstab for a subset of samples with higher viral load. It’s reasonable! IIRC from a previous paper, this (90% of Ct<25) has a similar effect as just reducing the overall cutoff to (80% of all). It’s also reasonable to use studies from other countries or to follow other agencies, in either case the ones we think are credible, which is again about the evidence threshold. What I’ve been hammering on is that the idea these tests are so different that they’re noncomparable is not sensible.
The EU and the UK also have regulatory agencies that require evidence for accepting tests.
From https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/default/files/preparedness_response/docs/covid-19_rat_common-list_en.pdf it seems that the alternative for using the straight comparison to PCR is:
That means that the test has to has a sensisitivty of 90% for patients with “Very high viral load”
The world is bigger then the US. In a case like this it makes sense to look at other countries who have enough tests for everyone who wants instead of just declaring the task impossible.
This is again a threshold, not comparator, complaint. Ct values are generated by PCR. Instead of using a crosstab for all samples, this approach is to use a crosstab for a subset of samples with higher viral load. It’s reasonable! IIRC from a previous paper, this (90% of Ct<25) has a similar effect as just reducing the overall cutoff to (80% of all). It’s also reasonable to use studies from other countries or to follow other agencies, in either case the ones we think are credible, which is again about the evidence threshold. What I’ve been hammering on is that the idea these tests are so different that they’re noncomparable is not sensible.