Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of positive covid-19 test results are (a) false positive and (b) false negative.

In June 2020 the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published a briefing paper on the impact of false positives and false negatives in the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing programme, which is available to view at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gos-impact-of-false-positives-and-negatives-3-june-2020