Testing Times: After Missing few Positive cases, Testing kits Praised by Trump come under Question

A preliminary study says that the Abbott Coronavirus test which was promoted by President Trump and used by the White House has failed to detect the number of infected samples which a rival firm was able to detect. 

The rapid Abbott test, which reports a positive case within 5-13 minutes, missed a third of the positive samples diagnosed by rival company Cepheid. The study done by a group from the New York University revealed that both the tests used nasopharyngeal swabs, whereas Abbott missed one by third of the positive cases.

According to The Washington Post’s Report, the study is in preliminary stages and is not peer reviewed but it raises questions about this test which was praised by Trump in several occasions. He displayed this test at a Rose Garden news conference on April 2 and called it “a whole new ballgame.”

Abbot denied the allegations about major flaws in its test. “It’s unclear if the samples were tested correctly in this study. Abbott has distributed about 1.8 million ID NOW tests and the reported rate of false negatives to Abbott is at 0.02 percent.”

John Koval, Abbott’s spokesman revealed that “This rate has been previously shared with the FDA. In communications with the users of the test, it is performing as expected.”

The White House was shocked when two staffers tested positive for COVID19 last week. Four officials who were tested said that the White House was only using the Abbott model.