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dariober
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NOTE this answer precedes the OP's note about percentages. This answer assumed:

  • 1/41 is the prior probability of infection in the tested population (not the population as a whole)

  • 2/1000 is the false negative rate of the PCR test $P(PCR^{-}|Infected)$


I may be confused myself as my calculations do give probabilities summing to 1.

The analytical false positive rate of a PCR test is 2 in 1,000

I assumed you mean false negative rate, right? Otherwise how can you have 2.4% true positives (1/41), 6.8% positive tests but only 0.2% false positives?

Here's my reasoning. First let's set up a simple tree with 100k people (there is some rounding here):

                      100000 people
                           |
                 --------------------
                 |                  | 
              Infected          Not infected 
              P = 1/41           P = 40/41  
               2439                97561
                 |                   |
         -------------          ------------
         |           |          |          |
       PCR+        PCR-        PCR+       PCR-
     P = 0.998   P = 0.002   P = 0.044   P = 0.956
       2434          5         4366       93195

Here P = 0.044 is the false positive rate and comes from 0.068 - (0.998 * 1/41).

And here's the probabilities:

$$ P(inf^{-}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(40/41) \cdot 0.044}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.638 $$

and

$$ P(inf^{+}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(1/41) \cdot 0.998}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.362 $$

If I'm correct, your mistake is in using 0.068 as denominator in the Bayes formulas.

I may be confused myself as my calculations do give probabilities summing to 1.

The analytical false positive rate of a PCR test is 2 in 1,000

I assumed you mean false negative rate, right? Otherwise how can you have 2.4% true positives (1/41), 6.8% positive tests but only 0.2% false positives?

Here's my reasoning. First let's set up a simple tree with 100k people (there is some rounding here):

                      100000 people
                           |
                 --------------------
                 |                  | 
              Infected          Not infected 
              P = 1/41           P = 40/41  
               2439                97561
                 |                   |
         -------------          ------------
         |           |          |          |
       PCR+        PCR-        PCR+       PCR-
     P = 0.998   P = 0.002   P = 0.044   P = 0.956
       2434          5         4366       93195

Here P = 0.044 is the false positive rate and comes from 0.068 - (0.998 * 1/41).

And here's the probabilities:

$$ P(inf^{-}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(40/41) \cdot 0.044}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.638 $$

and

$$ P(inf^{+}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(1/41) \cdot 0.998}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.362 $$

If I'm correct, your mistake is in using 0.068 as denominator in the Bayes formulas.

NOTE this answer precedes the OP's note about percentages. This answer assumed:

  • 1/41 is the prior probability of infection in the tested population (not the population as a whole)

  • 2/1000 is the false negative rate of the PCR test $P(PCR^{-}|Infected)$


I may be confused myself as my calculations do give probabilities summing to 1.

The analytical false positive rate of a PCR test is 2 in 1,000

I assumed you mean false negative rate, right? Otherwise how can you have 2.4% true positives (1/41), 6.8% positive tests but only 0.2% false positives?

Here's my reasoning. First let's set up a simple tree with 100k people (there is some rounding here):

                      100000 people
                           |
                 --------------------
                 |                  | 
              Infected          Not infected 
              P = 1/41           P = 40/41  
               2439                97561
                 |                   |
         -------------          ------------
         |           |          |          |
       PCR+        PCR-        PCR+       PCR-
     P = 0.998   P = 0.002   P = 0.044   P = 0.956
       2434          5         4366       93195

Here P = 0.044 is the false positive rate and comes from 0.068 - (0.998 * 1/41).

And here's the probabilities:

$$ P(inf^{-}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(40/41) \cdot 0.044}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.638 $$

and

$$ P(inf^{+}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(1/41) \cdot 0.998}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.362 $$

If I'm correct, your mistake is in using 0.068 as denominator in the Bayes formulas.

Source Link
dariober
  • 5.3k
  • 19
  • 23

I may be confused myself as my calculations do give probabilities summing to 1.

The analytical false positive rate of a PCR test is 2 in 1,000

I assumed you mean false negative rate, right? Otherwise how can you have 2.4% true positives (1/41), 6.8% positive tests but only 0.2% false positives?

Here's my reasoning. First let's set up a simple tree with 100k people (there is some rounding here):

                      100000 people
                           |
                 --------------------
                 |                  | 
              Infected          Not infected 
              P = 1/41           P = 40/41  
               2439                97561
                 |                   |
         -------------          ------------
         |           |          |          |
       PCR+        PCR-        PCR+       PCR-
     P = 0.998   P = 0.002   P = 0.044   P = 0.956
       2434          5         4366       93195

Here P = 0.044 is the false positive rate and comes from 0.068 - (0.998 * 1/41).

And here's the probabilities:

$$ P(inf^{-}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(40/41) \cdot 0.044}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.638 $$

and

$$ P(inf^{+}|PCR^{+}) = \frac{P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})}{P(inf^{-}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{-}) + P(inf^{+}) \cdot P(PCR^{+}|inf^{+})} \\ = \frac{(1/41) \cdot 0.998}{(40/41) \cdot 0.044 + (1/41) \cdot 0.998} = 0.362 $$

If I'm correct, your mistake is in using 0.068 as denominator in the Bayes formulas.