[martini333]

The Norwegian study found covid antigen in 98 out of 6520 samples.

[jsnell]

Those 6250 samples were mostly from 2020, and the positive samples were almost entirely late 2020. Only one of the positives was from December 2019.

[zibzab]

Ah, you are correct. IIRC the French study was a single sample.

On the other hand, I feel 98 indicates a wide spread in Norway and probably in whole Europe. But that doesn't match the picture we had in EU around January-February.

[estaseuropano]

This is an insane proportion and the virus would have been picked up much earlier in a place like Norway which does lots of testing and flu sampling.

[dotancohen]

98/6520 is about 1.5 percent. What is the false-positive rate for the antigen tests? Have the affected blood samples been verified by PCR testing?

[rsfern]

It’s most likely too late for PCR confirmation with these samples, there would need to be actual viral proteins in the blood sample, so an active or very recent infection at the time of the blood draw

[martini333]

No idea. But 98/6520 is more than 2 out of millions.

[egberts1]

and a lot closer to 1 out of 650.