Kansas National Guard member Roy Manns writes down results as he runs samples through an Abbott coronavirus testing machine at a drive-through testing site on Wednesday in Dodge City.
In addition, combining antibody testing with diagnostic testing could reduce the number of tests that appear to be producing positive results, lowering the overall "positivity rate." That's another important benchmark.
"I suspect it will artificially lower the percent positive," wrote Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in another email to NPR about the CDC testing data.
CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund wrote in an email to NPR that the "majority of the data is PCR testing" but acknowledged that the agency's tally includes antibody testing because "some states are including serology data" in their testing numbers.
She added, however: "We hope to have the testing data broken down between PCR and serology testing in the coming weeks as well."
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