LONDON — Boris Johnson’s spokesman says the British prime minister is continuing his recovery from COVID-19 and, on the advice of his doctors, is “not immediately returning to work.”
It seems odd to me (I might be wrong) that he should test negative so soon after release from ICU. Luck? False negative?
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tests Negative For COVID-19 After Hospitalization
One test* isn’t enough due to the high false negative rate. Better do it again, several times a day, for weeks.
*the test involves ramming a long qtip=like swab up a nostril, to the eyeball, and rummaging around with it.
This is incredibly troubling. If his initial test was a false positive, and he had to go to the ICU, you have to ask why.
If he had a positive test, then got sick, and the current test is negative, then you at least need to do an antibody test.
The government may be saying he’s no longer sick, but that’s not the same thing as not having the virus. It’s a Trumpian level of stupid.
False negative is certainly possible – but in any event one needn’t assume either that the spokesman is lying or that one has been given the result of every test that was performed on the patient.
I also kinda wonder about his treatment protocol. If I were his docs, I likely would have been stuffing him full of remdesdvir(?) or convalescent serum or both.
It’s plausible. The worst cases of COVID-19 result in a “cytokine storm” as the immune system clears or tries to clear the virus. The storm hits you pretty hard even if it doesn’t put you on a ventilator.