Talk:COVID-19 testing

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 April 2020 and 10 June 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Elisawulfsberg (article contribs).

Adding a recent review article to Further Reading Section

Dear All,

Below please find a recent review article published in one of the most prominent journals in the field of clinical laboratory medicine on the application of molecular diagnostic assays for COVID-19: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408363.2021.1884640

In case you think this paper can add to the contents of this Wikipedia page, please add it to the Further Readings Sections.--GeneticsFeed (talk) 14:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The citation for this paper is:

• Habibzadeh, Parham; Mofatteh, Mohammad; Silawi, Mohammad; Ghavami, Saeid; Faghihi, Mohammad Ali (2021-02-17). "Molecular diagnostic assays for COVID-19: an overview". Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences: 1–20. doi:10.1080/10408363.2021.1884640. ISSN 1549-781X. PMC 7898297. PMID 33595397.

I wonder whether it would be better to just use it as a source in the article.

GeneticsFeed, I'm going to assume that your use of the COI tag means that you're either a subject-matter expert or that you know one. Can you please tell me if there's anything obviously wrong/outdated in this article? If you look it over and find yourself thinking "I can't believe that this article is still saying ____" or "That's wrong", then I'd consider it a favor if you just pasted copies of the offending content on the talk page so we could see about correcting or removing them. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Thank you for your note. As you pointed out I'm a subject-matter expert. In fact there is nothing wrong with this publication. It is a recent review article and has been published in a high quality peer-reviewed publication. It can also be used as a reference instead of the large number of pre-print references that have not undergone peer review. GeneticsFeed (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@GeneticsFeed, I'm sorry, I must not have been clear. I want to know what's wrong with the Wikipedia article. I assume that there are errors, and I'd really appreciate it if you could point out the most glaring of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much WhatamIdoing for the clarification. I misunderstood. Besides my suggestion to add this paper to the further reading section as an updated resource for information regarding the molecular diagnostic assays for COVID-19, there are some statements in the "causes of test error" section which are not supported by any evidence. These facts have been widely discussed in the "Quality Control" section of the mentioned article. GeneticsFeed (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

@GeneticsFeed, thanks for pointing out that section. I've removed most of it. I hadn't actually given the article a good look for a long while, and this is probably just the first step in a long clean up process.

Thanks for sharing the source. So far, I've used it to add a summary at the top of the section that's mostly about RT-PCR. To be absolutely clear, I'm using your source because it's a review article (Wikipedia's favorite kind of paper) from a top-tier journal,[1] and not because you've been so kind as to help me figure out which problems were the most glaring in the article.

That said, I'm really grateful for you telling me both about the high-quality source and about the problems in the article. Please continue to post suggestions here. Also, if you ever see problems in a Wikipedia article that you don't think you should edit directly, or if you need help, then the regulars at Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine would love to hear from you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Will certainly do.GeneticsFeed (talk) 12:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Split proposal

I propose splitting out the WP:PROSELINE of a ==History== section to a new article called Development of COVID-19 tests. I think this will let this article focus on the tests as they are, without having the events of each day or week for the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the way. I've written a mini-intro to that section, and I think the best approach is to leave that summary here, add {{main|Development of COVID-19 tests}} to the top, and move everything else to the new page. Does that sound okay to everyone else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. It's long enough to warrant its own article, and would make the article easier to read. 5a5ha seven (talk | contribs) 15:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

There being no immediate objections, I've made this split. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

National responses

The § National responses section is poorly written: it's a random set of factoids about a random set of countries. The section should be rewritten or removed entirely. If anyone attempts to rewrite it, I suggest: (a) taking a global view instead of looking at countries separately (in other words, get rid of subsections); (b) focusing on different strategies chosen and major milestones achieved in deployment of tests instead of listing random data points. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 21:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect test specificity definition

Under methods > Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test the following statement is made: "The term sensitivity refers to the capacity of a test to identify all infected people, while specificity is the ability of a test to detect a particular virus"

This is not the common meaning of specificity, and even if it is used this way in the source, it will still confuse readers.

Proposed change: "The term sensitivity refers to the capacity of a test to identify all infected people, while specificity is the ability of a test to detect those that are not infected." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:4781:2DA0:6040:8368:C30D:5C1A (talk) 15:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 May 2021

Change "Use Commonwealth English" to "EngvarB" per tfd outcome Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#To_convert 81.2.252.231 (talk) 03:02, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Run n Fly (talk) 18:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)