Coronavirus is being caught on restrictions – Kommersant FM – Kommersant

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There is a sharp jump in the incidence of coronavirus in the capital. Over the past day, about 4 thousand new infections have been detected, which is a third more than on September 29. As the COVID-19 situation worsens, the authorities are taking new measures. So, in the capital, the mask regime has been tightened, raids are being carried out in public transport and in shopping centers. Already the fourth of them – “Aviapark” – was under the threat of being closed until the New Year due to the fact that employees work without masks. And from October 1, all patients who visit doctors with ARVI symptoms will be tested for the antigen to coronavirus without fail. A positive test result will be considered a confirmed case. According to the Mosgorzdrav, such patients will be immediately determined a treatment regimen and given medications, and they will also be required to consent to self-isolation.

Rapid antigen tests can detect the infection quickly – in 10-20 minutes. But at the same time, they give a lot of erroneous results, emphasized Oksana Stanevich, an infectious disease doctor at the Pavlov First St.Petersburg State Medical University:

“In fact, a coronavirus antigen test can have a number of both false negative and false positive responses. The fact that it is done quickly is, in general, its only advantage over PCR, because such a study is less accurate. And, of course, from the hands of the operator who will do this analysis at the patient’s home or at the reception at the center, from how he read the instructions to the analysis, how long he waited before the reaction happened and how long after the reaction he looked at this litmus test, it depends whether the result will be distorted.

It can be false positive due to the fact that the doctor’s office, for example, is not very clean, or he did not change gloves between patients, especially if they are members of the same family, and he came to their home. Therefore, unfortunately, the frequency of erroneous results can increase when performing this test. There is another side to this. If a person is really sick, then in this case they will be more often detected, and in a region with a high prevalence of the disease, this is an advantage.

That is, if earlier they did not have time to do PCR for risk groups, and because of this the patients were later hospitalized, now there is a chance that people will be in the hospital earlier. “

The results of rapid tests for the antigen will be rechecked using PCR testing, the Moscow City Health Department said. And it is possible that the rapid diagnosis algorithm will be extended not only to patients with acute respiratory viral infections, but also to all others, regardless of what complaint the Muscovite has turned to the doctor. Often, the coronavirus is asymptomatic, and this prevents doctors from compiling a complete picture of the incidence in the city, recalled Alexey Remez, director of the medical company Unim:

“In most countries, like Israel, for example, one of the integral indicators was the number of tests, that is, there was no mention of the number of identified patients with COVID-19 without mentioning the number of tests performed, because this is a very important value for an objective understanding of statistics. As for testing in general for all people who seek medical help for any reason, it cannot be ruled out that it will begin to be carried out.

In general, there is nothing wrong with this, that is, I can again appeal to the experience in other countries, for example, in the event industry when holding an event, when the budget includes express testing for antigen of everyone who comes to the event. And there is the same absolutely rational grain in this, as in the incoming testing when seeking any type of medical care. Here, as always, the devil is in the details. The main thing is that this testing does not become a barrier in obtaining medical care, so that this process itself does not become a hotbed for the spread of infection. That is, with proper organization, it mainly brings advantages. “

If the antigen test confirms the coronavirus, all household members who live with the sick patient will have to undergo such testing. Since September, a seasonal rise in the incidence of ARVI has begun in Russia. In the past three weeks, an increase in coronavirus infection has also been recorded, said the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova.

Svetlana Belova

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