In low prevalence areas, you'll get less false positives because the RT PCR test is extremely accurate for detecting the COVID 19 signature genes. If the genes don't exist, they cannot be detected. In high prevalence areas, you'll get more false positives because the test will discover a fragment of dead nucleotides and still return a positive result.
You might pair it up with an antibody test, but that test could detect antibodies to a common cold and come back as positive. The antibodies, and the dead virus rna can float around your body for months returning positive test results.
Nonetheless, people who receive positive results will be sent to quarantine, and tracked / traced and treated as if they are infectious. Their life is disrupted, and those connected to them are disrupted also. All because a test not fit for diagnosis returns a positive result that is interpreted as infectious.
These people are categorised as "long haulers", or "reinfected". But that's usually bullshit. Most defenders of the high sensitivity will say it's better to have far too many false positives so we can be vigilant. The high numbers influence policy. It's more than some epidemiologist nerds marveling at how beautiful it is to watch a virus spread in real time. It's governments stepping in to manage and coddle.
How accurate are coronavirus tests? - BBC Newsnight
https://youtu.be/fZsEAQbiBTo
WHO defends the high sensitivity saying it helps them observe how the virus is spreading across the globe.
Michael Mina - The neglected CT (Cycle Threshold) levels to determine viral load and infectiousness
https://youtu.be/oxoE47qT3fE
FDA does not approve sharing the CT value with test results. So doctors in the US must simply take a positive result as meaning positive + infectious.
https://www.who.int/diagnostics_labo...e_2.0.pdf?ua=1
See page 11. Ct @ 45
https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor...ly-discharged/
Quote:
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patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) with Ct above 33 to 34 are not contagious and can be discharged from hospital care or strict confinement
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