For some time we've been dealing with infections diffused across the whole population of Poland - said Dr Tomasz Dzieciątkowski, a virologist from the Medical University of Warsaw. He also commented in TVN24 about antigen tests that Poland plans to introduce to detect cases.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Friday (October 30) that antigen tests would be treated as equal basis for confirming infections as the PCR tests. He stressed that the change would allow health service to test patients much faster.
Doctor Tomasz Dzieciątkowski, a virologist from the Medical University of Warsaw, told TVN24 that antigen tests would most likely lead to an increase in daily confirmed cases. "I think that it may even double the increase, it may be as much as 40-50 thousand people" - he said.
He added, however, that antigen tests would be primarily used to check people showing symptoms, and as in case of any other diagnostic method, the test could show both falsely positive and falsely negative results. "If someone think there's a 100-percent-accurate diagnostic or therapeutic method, then please show it to me. As a lab technician, I've never seen anything like it" - he said. The doctor stressed that if an antigen test shows positive result, it means it's definitely the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but a negative result cannot fully rule out the virus.
"For some time we've been dealing with infections diffused across the whole population. Although in the beginning it was easy to spot outbreaks, for instance weddings, restaurants, or schools, it's now very likely the virus is being spread across the whole population of Poland, and because of that it may be very, very difficult to stop it" - said Dr Tomasz Dzieciątkowski.
Poland has reported 395,480 coronavirus infections so far. 5,875 infected patients have died since the start of the pandemic.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, TVN24