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"Partial information is worth something"

I disagree. A false negative in a mild case could be dangerous if someone assumes no COVID-19 and socially interacts with vulnerable people. A false positive might give a vulnerable person the courage to forgo social distancing and actually contract it.

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If the number of lives saved by making best use of partial information exceeds the number of lives lost because of people who fail to understand the concept, then that's a net benefit.

> A false positive might give a vulnerable person the courage to forgo social distancing and actually contract it.

What?

If they think that then they're not thinking it through all the way. They may still get it in the future from some source. Also who gets courage to expose themselves to a contagion?

Maybe I wasn't clear. What if you have mild symptoms including loss of olfactory sense, and in a week or two assume you're relatively immune based on this logic? There might be people who may not observe precautions as much (washing hands, social distancing, etc.) if they think they've already contracted the virus and survived.

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