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Ticket 2020.12.07 17:00 | Revision 2020.12.07 17:11
“Antigen test is less accurate than current PCR” ➝ “Situations with more advantages and significantly shorter test time”
First, quarantine authorities have expressed difficulties in antigen testing due to problems with the accuracy of antigen testing and current laws. Experts pointed to the ‘procrastination’ response, saying that even before the social distancing stage was raised, asymptomatic patients should have been tested for antigen to discover the spread of Corona 19.
According to the Central Defense Countermeasures Headquarters on the 7th, rapid antigen tests for Corona 19 will be expanded to the metropolitan area and throughout the country, starting with nursing hospitals and psychiatric hospitals. This is a measure to trap the spread of Corona 19, which has not been easily detected in the recent metropolitan area.
The government has determined whether or not it is confirmed by a PCR test for subjects who meet certain conditions, such as overlapping lines of motion with corona-confirmed patients19 and symptoms such as fever. However, more tests are required if it is a test to preventively find an infected person, regardless of the movement or symptoms of the existing confirmed person. That is why an antigen test that can confirm infection in 30 minutes is said to be more appropriate than PCR, which takes about 6 hours to perform.
In the PCR test, a sample is taken from the patient’s nose and throat, and then the viral DNA is amplified to confirm the presence of corona virus 19. The biggest advantage is that the precision is high, but the problem is that it requires inspection equipment like a gene amplifier and is time consuming. On the other hand, the antigen test can detect a specific component of the Corona 19 virus in a sample collected from inside the nose and confirm whether it is infected within 30 minutes. It has the disadvantage of lower precision compared to the PCR test.
The government’s decision to expand antigen testing means that it will expand preventive testing, which is seen to have been influenced by President Moon’s orders, as well as the recent rate of positive tests has skyrocketed.
The positive rate, calculated in comparison with the number of corona 19 tests in Korea, was 615 out of 14,509 the day before, registering 4.24%. It fell slightly from the previous day of 4.39%, but skyrocketed around 2 percentage points considering it was in the 2% range a month ago.
In a briefing on the 30th of last month, Chung Eun-kyung said in a briefing on the 30th of last month: “Since the positive test rate in Korea is around 2%, if the rapid antigen test is positive , it is more likely to be a false positive (false positive) than a true positive. ” It means that the accuracy of the test result may be degraded because the test result that should be negative may be incorrect and will be positive.
Earlier, Lee Sang-won, chief of epidemiological research and analysis, central quarantine countermeasures at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing on the 26th of the same month: “There is a limit for a medical professional collect and analyze both the antigen test and the PCR (gene amplification) test, so I think it will be difficult to temporarily run the entire national test, “he said.
However, on that day, President Moon ordered to actively promote the use of a rapid antigen test that can immediately confirm the results of the Corona 19 test at an internal meeting of the Blue House. Then on the same day, director Lee Sang-won said, “Rapid antigen testing had the limit that the false positive rate was high, but at the time the incidence rate of (Corona 19) increases, We see it as such a boost that usable profits increase. ” He said: “We plan to gradually expand the scope of use moving closer to the highly usable side, such as remote, remote and emergency rooms.”
The impeachment of Corona 19’s preventive prosecutor has already surfaced between experts, including political circles, and Celltrion chairman Seo Jeong-jin. Ho-young Joo, the head of the People’s Power, earlier said in a speech to the representative of the parliamentary group in September: “The self-test kit has the disadvantage that the accuracy is relatively low, but the price is only one-eighth of the PCR method and testing time is 15 minutes. ” “Diagnostic kits exported to more than 100 countries around the world should be available to the public,” he argued.
President Seo Jeong-jin also said at the ‘Health Innovation Forum 2020’ organized by Chosun Biz and the Korea Health Industry Promotion Agency on November 12, “If a treatment comes out for (Corona 19) , we will suggest that the government diagnose all people. ” “I believe that Korea can become a clean country by administering (treatment) to people who think they are patients.”
Some point out that if the government had actively carried out preventive inspections since the beginning of the year that Corona 19 began to occur, the current social distancing measures would not have arrived. In the past, quarantine authorities recommended refraining from going out and taking a break at home when suspicious Corona 19 symptoms appeared, but recently, when the number of confirmed cases has started to rise, they have emphasized and encouraged preventive testing for Corona 19 .
Jae-wook Choi, professor of preventive medicine at Korea University School of Medicine, said: “It is not enough to prevent the silent spread of the latent in the local community just by social distancing, so we should find the spreader in the first days”. “We can reduce the number of preachers that go out.”
