Foolish Rakuten to sell examination kit of COVID-19

Rakuten. Inc. has begun to sell handy examination kit of COVID-19 very recently.

According to the media, this kit is not a medical device. You have to scratch your mucous membrane with a cotton swab, to send it to the examination center. Then you will receive the result.

Nonsense!

Medical examination is not a definite way to determine a person's status. I guess most people believe this kind of test kit will give the answer with 100% of confidence. But, any tests have a risk of false positive as well as false negative. Even in an excellent test kit, sensitivity is up to 90%, and specificity is up to 99.9%. Furthermore, scratching the nose mucous is not an easy way. In my experience of a physician, we often fail to collect the sample, in the flu case.

I am extremely afraid if unskilled people will take this kit to check their status. If thousands of people take the test on their own regardless of the symptoms, there will be massive subjects with false positive or false negative. People of false positive will go to hospital in vein, leading to burdening medical staffs. People of false negative will go out recklessly to transfer the virus.

Rakuten's product is perhaps an excellent one. But, delivering this device to non-expert people is the worst act in the world. We should drop it immediately.