RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Scientific Notation LODwhatdoiknow123 wrote: The BD test does have a place in the testing spectrum but the following points should be borne in mind:
1. In the battle against Covid and the desire to identify as many +ve carriers as possible, in order to isolate, prevent from travel, allow access to workplace, sporting events etc, the main aim is to try not to miss too many Covid+ve patients. To this end the Sensitivity is much more important than the Selectivity. BD´s does have 100% selectivity which means that everyone tested positive is indeed positive HOWEVER it only has 84% sensitivity which means that of every 100 patients who have Covid the BD test misses 16. This is clearly not very desirable.
Sona´s test, by comparison, has 96% selectivity meaning that 4 people testing positive do not have the virus BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY also has 96% sensitivity meaning that it only misses 4 out of very 100 infected patients ie. is 400% more accurate in not missing infected patients which is clearly much more desirable.
2. The BD test requires a BD Veritor reader which can only do 3-4 tests per hour ie. even if operating 24hrs a day each machine can only process 72-96 tests per day. ( Sona could in theory test hundreds or thousands of patients in 15-20 mins as no bottle-necking machine is necessary). Or you could use one of two Luminex tests already cleared on the 17,000 systems they have already installed globally which can process 96 tests within 3 hours which add up to 4,896,000 tests/day if all systems were run for a 9 hour period each day..!
Furthermore BD tests should be carried out within 1 hour of taking the sample meaning that you can´t extract all the samples and later test throughout the day.
3. The BD test costs approx. 100$ , multiples of the cost of the Sona test.
These and many other factors clearly give the Sona test a considearble advantage over BD whichever way you look at it although there will be a place for both.