> IF TNR is 20%, that means you'll mistakenly detect 20% of people that don't have it as infected, which would be really bad.
Would it though? It's my understanding that most people who test positive are still being sent home, not forcefully hospitalized. And given that we don't actually have a widely used pharmaceutical intervention protocol, there's no side effects to worry about from false positives (eg of the opposite of this: if we were giving every confirmed case chloroquine or interleukin). The worst case outcome from a high false positive rate (low TNR) would seem to me that people would be extra good at self quarantining.
If you're a healthcare worker, the cost of a false-positive could be high.
For them and others one cost is that they'll feel themselves somewhat immune when they're not and may not take precautions. It will also confuse study of the disease if it starts to look like your "2nd" infection can be much worse than your first.
Would it though? It's my understanding that most people who test positive are still being sent home, not forcefully hospitalized. And given that we don't actually have a widely used pharmaceutical intervention protocol, there's no side effects to worry about from false positives (eg of the opposite of this: if we were giving every confirmed case chloroquine or interleukin). The worst case outcome from a high false positive rate (low TNR) would seem to me that people would be extra good at self quarantining.