During a noon coronavirus briefing, Gov. Gavin Newsom said California is not conflating swab tests that diagnose current coronavirus infections with antibody test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus.
“One-and-a-half million tests have now been conducted” in California, he said. “Those are PCR tests, not the antibody tests. There are some states, lovingly I say this, that are conflating the antibody tests and PCR tests. We’re not.”
News reports have found Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Vermont and other states have lumped the tests together.
Earlier this week, the Atlantic confirmed reporting from Miami public radio station WLRN that found the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listing the results of both viral and antibody tests under one category called “testing.”
“The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19,” Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer wrote in the Atlantic.