High specificity but low sensitivity. The specificity comes from looking for different rna strands. But they can be quite hard to find.
a positive test means you’ve definiteky got the rna. Which of course could be from dead virus rather than actively replicating virus, but it is hard to find.
the basics of sensitivity / specificity / negative & positive predictive values and Bayesian statistics probably aren’t on the radar of musk.
or most of the global population. But most worryingly not politicians either
