Experiencing cold symptoms this week, entrepreneur Elon Musk did the responsible thing and had himself tested for the COVID-19 virus that is said to be spiking again in parts of the United States. In fact, Musk was tested four times in one day. Two of the test results were positive for COVID-19 and two were negative.
The unusual results prompted Musk to tweet: “Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.”
Musk’s experience causes one to reasonably ask, is the so-called “spike” in COVID-19 cases we’re currently seeing in large swaths of the United States due to such false positives? Do all such tests immediately get reported as actual COVID-19 cases? Were Musk’s two positive tests reported twice?
Musk’s initial tests were of the rapid antigen variety. Admittedly, these are the most unreliable of the COVID-19 tests and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has even issued a warning about the potential for false-positives for that particular test.
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“The FDA is aware of reports of false positive results associated with antigen tests used in nursing homes and other settings and continues to monitor and evaluate these reports and other available information about device safety and performance.”
If you go by Musk’s personal experience, the antigen test’s accuracy rate is only 50 percent. As of this writing, Musk still doesn’t know if he has the virus or not, although he must act as though he has it, or be pilloried. Musk would later tweet that he has taken the more invasive and reportedly more reliable PCR test.
In response to a question about whether these false negatives are the reason that the nation is seeing such a large spike, Musk responded: “If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others. I’m getting PCR tests from separate labs. Results will take about 24 hours.”
Dr. Eugene Gu attempted to explain Musk’s false positives: “It matters what order you received those results. If you had the first two tests come back negative earlier in the day and then the last two tests came back positive later in the day, then it could mean you passed the threshold for detecting the coronavirus as they replicated.”
Perhaps. But a more logical explanation would be that one came back positive, and due to the FDA’s warning, coupled with the physician’s office understanding that false positives are normal, they retested — and so on.
Others called Musk irresponsible for publicly questioning the results and the testing. MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin tweeted: “Such an irresponsible tweet.”
But why is it irresponsible? Griffin doesn’t say, but it can be reasonably surmised that because Musk’s tweet is questioning the officially approved narrative surrounding the coronavirus, he simply shouldn’t say anything.
It’s not the first time that Musk has questioned things COVID-19 related. In May, the founder of Tesla, Inc., openly defied an Alameda County stay-at-home order and restarted production at his factory in the county. Musk seemingly dared county authorities to do something about it by tweeting: “Tesla is restarting today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”
Musk is a difficult person to pin down politically. Over the summer, Musk publicly endorsed rapper Kanye West’s strange run for the presidency, although Musk later said he thought 2024 would be better for such a run. In May, he shook up many on the Left by mysteriously tweeting, “Take the red pill,” a reference to the movie The Matrix, in which the protagonist takes a red pill only to find out that he’s been living in a manufactured reality. During 2016, the term “red pilling” came to be a synonym for coming out of leftist worldview.
A few days later, Musk tweeted, “Cancel Cancel Culture!” before adding, “More fun, less shun!”
Yet, Musk favors a Universal Basic Income (UBI), like the one proposed by Democrat candidate Andrew Yang earlier this year. At the same time he supports UBI, Musk is opposed to another round of coronavirus stimulus, saying that such bills are “jammed to the gills with special interest earmarks. If we do a stimulus at all, it should just be direct payments to consumers.”
As the creator of an electric car company, one might expect Musk to be a knee-jerk leftist and a climate-change activist. But many of his opinions and actions belie that conclusion. Musk appears to be a ideological lone wolf — and such people, regardless of their opinions, are extremely interesting.
