[Goose]

I can understand the confusion and I agree with you, Goose, but the fact of the matter is that when interpreting an imperfect test, the priors matter.  An asymptomatic, vaccinated individual with no close COVID-19 contacts in a part of the country where COVID is under control with a positive antigen test a decent chance of having had a false positive test.  That same individual with a bunch of teammates who have COVID-19 who tests positive is likely to be a true positive.  It might be reasonable to re-test the first person with a PCR to confirm the positive test, but it doesn’t make sense to re-test the second person, and a negative test under those circumstances should not be used as justification to suggest the first test was a false positive and should therefore be ignored.

Agree that communication of this is challenging, but communication of all things COVID is challenging.  None of this is straightforward, there’s a lot we don’t know, and the evidence is constantly changing.  It’s easy to dunk on our public health experts, and they’ve dropped the ball to be sure, but they’ve probably done about as well as can reasonably be expected given all the challenges.

BC

I agree BC. There is no reason for the University to retest the athletes under those conditions. In fact, they didn't. The PCR tests were apparently done by the players themselves (with unknown prodding by the parents). It would have been better if somebody had told the players it wouldn't matter, but as you say there is lots of uncertainty even among the administrators as to what the "rules" actually are.

[Goose]

I can understand the confusion and I agree with you, Goose, but the fact of the matter is that when interpreting an imperfect test, the priors matter.  An asymptomatic, vaccinated individual with no close COVID-19 contacts in a part of the country where COVID is under control with a positive antigen test a decent chance of having had a false positive test.  That same individual with a bunch of teammates who have COVID-19 who tests positive is likely to be a true positive.  It might be reasonable to re-test the first person with a PCR to confirm the positive test, but it doesn’t make sense to re-test the second person, and a negative test under those circumstances should not be used as justification to suggest the first test was a false positive and should therefore be ignored.

Agree that communication of this is challenging, but communication of all things COVID is challenging.  None of this is straightforward, there’s a lot we don’t know, and the evidence is constantly changing.  It’s easy to dunk on our public health experts, and they’ve dropped the ball to be sure, but they’ve probably done about as well as can reasonably be expected given all the challenges.

BC

I agree BC. There is no reason for the University to retest the athletes under those conditions. In fact, they didn't. The PCR tests were apparently done by the players themselves (with unknown prodding by the parents). It would have been better if somebody had told the players it wouldn't matter, but as you say there is lots of uncertainty even among the administrators as to what the "rules" actually are.