Elon Musk raised a rather important question on Twitter, saying he’d been tested four times for the Wuhan coronavirus. What mystified him was that two times it came back positive and two times it came back negative.

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2020

This of course raises a lot of questions. Why? And how is that possible? What’s going on when you get results like that? Is he false positive or falsely negative? And are such results influencing other tests elsewhere, perhaps wrongly driving up the numbers of positives?

If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others. I’m getting PCR tests from separate labs. Results will take about 24 hours.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2020

All good questions to ask, it would seem to me, both for him and for the rest of Americans.

But MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin didn’t think so. Indeed, he claimed that it was irresponsible of Musk to even ask the question.

Such an irresponsible tweet.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 13, 2020

Why? How can stating what factually happened to you and asking why be “irresponsible?”

Moreover, why wouldn’t someone allegedly involved in “journalism” want to know the answer to the question? Isn’t this the sort of thing that would actually pique the interest of a journalist to want to know more? It would seem so, but not so much for Griffin.

Mr. Griffin thinks it's irresponsible because @elonmusk tweeted about irregularities with his COVID tests today. Shouldn't a journalist want to know this and investigate? I do! I want to know why and how companies plan to fix it so people don't get confused. https://t.co/3Sp3vQcHfE

— 🦃 Thankful Ginger 🍁 (@mchastain81) November 13, 2020

NBC News producer not interested in potential problems with COVID tests. https://t.co/q0EFZ15tgJ

— Nathan Wurtzel (((Slight Return))) (@NathanWurtzel) November 13, 2020

A scientist sharing hard data from their personal experience is irresponsible?

That would only be the case if you were driving a narrative that required blind trust in the media and government who are both pushing a campaign of fear.

oh wait

— Alec Sears (@alec_sears) November 13, 2020

Of course you could test positive and have no symptoms. Most cases are mild and only a small percentage progress on to a more serious issue, generally with people who are already compromised by other health issues. The real measure of the harmful impact is the hospitalizations and deaths.

But it would be important to see if this was a problem because of the rapid test or if there was some other issue going on here and it would help people to have a fuller understanding of what was going on with the tests. The bottom line is sometimes you get false positives and negatives. It’s important to to know that and then follow up with a more sensitive test as Musk was doing. But asking why is the very opposite of “irresponsible.” Indeed, it’s the “scientific” thing to do.

HT: Twitchy, Twitchy