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“I’m happy to confirm that the tests are going well,” he said in a broadcast. “About 200,000 people have already been tested and hundreds of people have tested positive for the antigen.” According to Med Uni Wien Vice Chancellor Oswald Wagner, up to 50 percent of this could be negative using the most accurate PCR test.
Meanwhile, it has been shown that so far there has been hardly any positive test. In Vorarlberg, for example, 82,533 tests were carried out on Saturday afternoon. Of these, 322 tests (0.39 percent) gave a positive result. So far, nearly 111,400 tests have been performed in Tyrol and 318 corona positives have been identified. Those affected now undergo a PCR test.
“According to experts, it can be assumed that between a third and a half of the initial positive tests can be given the go-ahead,” the defense minister explained. “We were able to send several people into isolation in due course who would not have known they were positive without these massive tests. Hundreds of chains of infection were broken in one day, ”Tanner was convinced.
Oswald Wagner thinks rapid tests make a lot of sense. He also referred to the star American virologist Anthony Fauci, who had broken the spear of rapid tests by saying that the perfect, that is, the PCR test, should not be the enemy of the good, that is, the rapid test. Because speed is even more important than sensitivity in order to quickly isolate infectious people, says Wagner, director of the clinical institute for laboratory medicine at the Vienna General Hospital. But he is very much in favor of the PCR being retested.
There is a good reason for it. Because, as Wagner emphasizes, with the number of cases currently low, the go-ahead could be given in perhaps as many as half of the cases after an originally positive test. As for the so-called rapid false negative tests, he points out that in most cases these do not work in people who have already had the infection or are no longer contagious. Individual infectious people will be overlooked, the vice chancellor acknowledges, but assumes that 90 percent of cases will be detected with rapid tests.
It would be ideal for Wagner if the tests were repeated, as Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) had promised the night before. The expert is confident of the home tests put into play by SPÖ boss Pamela Rendi-Wagner on Friday, which are likely to hit the market in January. You can take them yourself, as they are samples of saliva or the ones from the front of the nose.
For Wagner it is important that as many Austrians as possible participate in these tests. In his opinion, it would make sense to offer “discounts” for more tests in order to increase participation. When asked, Wagner said that this could also mean certain restrictions for those who do not participate.
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