Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday said he took four Covid-19 tests on the same day, with two showing positive results, while the other two were negative.
Taking to Twitter, the Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer wrote, "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."
When asked by a Twitter user - "Could this be why we’ve been seeing such a major spike?"
"If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others,' the Tesla CEO replied on Twitter.
Musk said he was also undergoing polymerase chain reaction tests from separate labs whose results will take about 24 hours.
"I’m getting PCR tests from separate labs. Results will take about 24 hours," he tweeted.
When asked by another user if he showed any symptoms, Elon Musk said he had symptoms of a "typical cold".
"Nothing unusual so far," he added.
At times, Musk has been dismissive and sowed doubts about the deadly virus, questioning the virality of the infection and claiming fatality rates are overstated.
In March, the CEO predicted there would be close to zero new cases in America by April. Roughly 150,000 Covid-19 cases are now being reported in US each day.
Elon Musk was probably referring to Becton Dickinson and Co's rapid antigen test in his tweet, reports Reuters.
Earlier in September, Becton Dickinson said it was investigating reports from US nursing homes that its rapid Covid-19 testing equipment was producing false-positive results.
Although no diagnostic test is considered perfect, PCR tests are considered the gold standard in terms of accuracy. They look for tiny bits of the coronavirus’s nucleic acids in an individual's sample. But they also have drawbacks. They’re highly technical, expensive and typically take many hours or days for someone to receive results.
Meanwhile, the overall number of global cases of Covid-19 has topped 52.6 million, while the deaths have surged to 1,291,920.
As of today morning, the total caseload and death toll stood at 52,643,939 and 1,291,921, respectively.
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