Ritz, There are significant false negatives and

Ritz,

There are significant false negatives and fewer false positives.

Study in the Lancet show false negative 2 - 33% and false positive 1-4%.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/art...7/fulltext

Globally, most effort so far has been invested in turnaround times and low test sensitivity (ie, false negatives); one systematic review reported false-negative rates of between 2% and 33% in repeat sample testing.4 Although false-negative tests have until now had priority due to the devastating consequences of undetected cases in health-care and social care settings, and the propagation of the epidemic especially by asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients,1 the consequences of a false-positive result are not benign from various perspectives (panel), in particular among health-care workers.
Panel
Technical problems including contamination during sampling (eg, a swab accidentally touches a contaminated glove or surface), contamination by PCR amplicons, contamination of reagents, sample cross-contamination, and cross-reactions with other viruses or genetic material could also be responsible for false-positive results.2 These problems are not only theoretical; the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention had to withdraw testing kits in March, 2020, when they were shown to have a high rate of false-positives due to reagent contamination.5
The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 0·8% and 4·0%.2,