Rapid COVID Antigen Test Results

BOTTOM LINE: The linked study described by the CDC says that the test being used as a condition of entry to the Texas Capitol is wrong 65% of the time for the asymptiomatic people being tested. Here is a CDC report that combines studies at two universities of the accuracy of the rapid antigen COVID tests being used at the Texas Capitol as a condition of entry. The test split the results into those tested that were asymptomatic and those tested that were symptiomatic. Of course, the applicable results for Capitol testing are asymptomatic, so I will focus on those results. The subjects of the tests at the two universities were tested three ways: 1) the rapid antigen test; 2) the PCR test; and 3) a culture test where the sample was cultured and those with COVID identified as positive. The culture test has to be considered the test that most accurately describes reality. The test calculates what it calls a Positive Predictive Value (PPV) which compares the culture test against the antigen test. In the chart pictured here from the results of one university, for the total 17 asymptiomatic positive antigen tests, the culture only identified 6 of them as accurate. Six divided by 17 equals a PPV of only 35%. In other words, if these results hold true, the false positive rate for the test is 65% for asympitomatic testees. There were no false negatives in the asymptiomatic subjects. I ask you, is a test that almost 2/3 of the time says you are sick, when you are not something that should be used to keep people from exercising their constitutional right to petition their government for redress of grievances? Note that in the total of 871 asymptiomatic people tested, only 21 had a positive antigen test. If the results from 17 of them from one university stayed true across that sample, only 7 of those 871 (0.8% were identified as truly having the virus). The linked article said that a survey was done of the subjects to determine if they thought that they had been exposed to COVID, but that data is not in this article. I presume that the asymptiomatic subjects had a higher degree of concern about having been exposed than the general population. If so, that would make a representative sample of the general population walking around with asymptiomatic COVID is even lower than the 0.8%. And, is a situation where less than 1 out of 100 people walking around with asymptiomatic COVID something worth presuming EVERYONE of being guilty of a threat to others? Would you say there is PROBABLE CAUSE that would justify testing everyone, even if the tests were reliable? https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm695152a3.htm#F1_down