Why Specificity Matters in COVID-19 antibody testingTest quality and accuracy are paramount to minimize risks of inaccurate results.

A good antibody test is one that has a high degree of sensitivity and specificity.

  • Test sensitivity indicates the ability of the test to correctly identify patients that have the disease. A test’s sensitivity is also known as the true positive rate. If a diagnostic test correctly identified 100% of all positive results, it would be as sensitive as possible.
  • Test specificity indicates the ability of the test to correctly identify patients that do not have the disease. If a test correctly identifies all people without the disease as negative, it would be as specific as possible.

The model above assumes assay sensitivity of 100%

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