The Walking Sick : How False Negatives Complicate the COVID-19 Pandemic

As more people are tested for COVID-19, medical experts are warning the results might not be 100 percent accurate.

I personally have tested negative and inconclusive for the virus known as COVID-19 or the Coronavirus and based on my research, I have learned that I am not alone.

Experts are suggesting that as much as 40% of tests for the virus are giving them false negatives. “A lot of my patients are testing negative for the virus despite having symptoms that I find clinically consistent with a COVID-19 diagnosis.” said Dr. David Renear.

If testing is our way to flatten the curve and contain this virus, then I have some bad news, we are in BIG trouble because the testing is far from accurate and people are being given negative results and sent back out into our society when they actually are sick with the virus.

If they were actually negative and did not have the Coronavirus (COVID-19) then why are doctors giving notes to people stating that “While you tested negative today for COVID-19, you should assume that you have the virus and should self isolate and only leave your home for medical reasons.” , if they are fine?

Makes no sense. Or, it makes perfect sense.

Is our government trying to keep our numbers of infected people low, or are the tests they are using flawed?

Or, is it both?

Something is not right with all of this. Speaking personally, I have had my symptoms for ten days tomorrow and they are not getting better, they are getting worse and they all are nearly identical to COVID-19 symptoms, yet they say I have an “unspecified viral infection” or “viral syndrome” and send me on my way.

Do you know what is listed in the family of viral syndromes?

I am sure you can guess. SARS is listed as a viral syndrome and SARS is related genetically to COVID-19. They are very different in many ways but they are both respiratory illnesses. Yes, the flu is also a viral syndrome, but in my case, I tested negative for all three types of the flu virus and my symptoms are more in line with the Coronavirus.

Yet, I have yet to have a positive result, but have all the symptoms and in increasing severity.

I titled this article “The Walking Sick” for a reason.

When people get COVID-19, they are ordered to self isolate away from people and not to work, go to the store, to school, and so on and for a very valid reason, to not spread the virus. With a negative result, this is a very different case and one with extreme danger for society.

You test negative, they tell you that you are fine and they send you out in the world where you return to work, to school, to go about your day to day life and then for those who have a false negative, they unknowingly infect others and spread the virus in our society.

There is another element to this. Employers and those who provide disability pay to people who have COVID-19 require a positive test to prove that you have the virus and cannot work, but with a negative result they do not give you that sick pay and help, yet you in actuality ARE sick and cannot work and thus you either work to pay your rent and put food on the table, or you lose everything.

The false negative creates so many problems.

The biggest problem being that we will never flatten the curve or stop the spread of this fatal virus if 40% of the people being tested are being told that they do not have the virus when they actually do have it and are spreading it to others by no fault of their own.

The media does not talk about this enough. Yet it should.

Testing is not where it should be here in America, both in availability and accuracy.

We need more tests, but we need better tests too. We need a system that lowers the false negative possibility while testing as many people as we can in the process.

I say “lowers the possibility of false negatives” because no diagnostic test is 100 percent accurate, but we can do better and we absolutely must do better if we are to save lives.

This is not only an American problem though, the testing dilemma and false negatives happen in other countries too. For example, Li Wenliang, who was an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, China and brought COVID-19 into the spotlight died of the virus, but only after he continued to test negative for the disease.

The false negative is a real problem.

People are sick with symptoms and get told that they do not have the virus and then they infect others, including their loved ones and likely so many more within our society as they believe what they are told, that they are not positive for this virus and can resume their lives.

There is a debate about reopening our cities and states and ending our stay-at-home orders that I have wrote about on more than one occasion and this false negative problem that we have should be addressed and for sure should not be brushed under the the rug or ignored in relation to that discussion as it plays a major role.

If we reopen now then people will spread this disease exponentially among our country and the reason they will is based mostly on this issue right here that I am writing about — the false negative.

We who have COVID-19 yet tested negative in a diagnostic test yet have mild to severe symptoms of the virus and who suffer from those symptoms are in a way, like the forgotten ones in this whole pandemic. Everyone is focusing on testing everyone else or on the positive cases while ignoring us who are sick, yet are pushed aside because we did not test positive.

It is important to test the people who have not been tested and to treat those who have tested positive, but it is also important to not forget those who have been tested, yet remain sick with COVID-19 symptoms and some who have severe and possibly deadly symptoms.

We matter too!

The way that this pandemic ends is for us to improve testing, both in the number of tests available, but also in quality and accuracy of these tests that are being given.

I will not make this political, but our federal leaders in the government need to work with our healthcare providers to make these tests better and more accurate instead of saying “We have great tests” because we do not have great tests, we have unreliable tests that are giving out false results and thus in essence, sending people out into the streets to infect others and make this pandemic more deadly and more lengthly.

We can do better. The way that we do that is to acknowledge that these false negatives are common and that we must begin to improve the reliability of these tests so that the false negative happens less and eventually almost not at all because as we stand now, we likely have millions infected with COVID-19 instead of the 850K that we have now.

If we care about the health of our people, this is the issue that we must include in the conversation about this virus because this, is a real threat to the safety of everyone.

Every. Last. One. Of. Us.