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Interpreting COVID-19 Test Results in Clinical Settings: It Depends!

Rachael Piltch-Loeb, PhD; Kyeong Yun Jeong; Kenneth W. Lin, MD, MPH; John D. Kraemer, JD, MPH; Michael A. Stoto, PhD

Corresponding Author: Kenneth W. Lin, MD, MPH; Georgetown University Medical Center. Email: Kenneth.Lin@georgetown.edu

Section: Evidence-Based Clinical Medicine

| FULL PDF |      

Tests for COVID-19 are intended for a disparate and shifting range of purposes including: (1) diagnosing patients who present with symptoms to inform individual treatment decisions; (2) organizational uses such as “cohorting” potentially infected patients and staff to protect others; and (3) contact tracing, surveillance, and other public health purposes. Often lost when testing is encouraged is that testing does not by itself confer health benefits. Rather, testing is useful to the extent it forms a critical link to subsequent medical or public health interventions. Such interventions might be individual-level, like better diagnosis, treatment, isolation, or quarantine of contacts. They might aid surveillance to understand levels and trends of disease within a defined population that enables informed decisions to implement or relax social distancing measures. In this paper, we describe the range of available COVID-19 tests; their accuracy and timing considerations; and the specific clinical, organizational, and public health considerations that warrant different testing strategies. Three representative clinical scenarios illustrate the importance of appropriate test use and interpretation. The reason a patient seeks testing is often a strong indicator of the pre-test probability of infection, and thus how to interpret test results. In addition, the level of population spread of the virus and the timing of testing play critical roles in the positive or negative predictive value of the test. We conclude with practical recommendations regarding the need for testing in various contexts, appropriate tests and testing methods, and the interpretation of test results. 

COVID-19 AHEAD OF PRINT

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