Elon Musk criticizes COVID-19 tests amid mixed results

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - American business magnate Elon Musk criticized COVID-19 tests, after the founder and CEO of aerospace manufacturer SpaceX said his multiple tests came back with opposite results.

"Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today," Musk wrote Thursday on Twitter.

"Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD," added Musk, who is also the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla.

Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are known to be less reliable compared to the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, however the former are less expensive and provide results within 15 minutes.

"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," Musk later wrote on the response section of his tweet.

American entrepreneur also noted that he has been experiencing mild sniffles, cough and slight fever over the last few days, and added he has taken NyQuil -- a common over-the-counter cold medicine in the US.

Musk was in Berlin last week for Tesla's new factory that is under construction, as Germany is one of the many European countries to begin a second quarantine process on Nov. 2 imposing lockdown in restaurants, bars and movie theaters.

In April, Musk had also criticized stay-at-home orders and quarantine measures against the novel coronavirus, calling them "fascist."

The US still leads the world with 10.5 million COVID-19 cases and over 242,000 deaths, while the global figures are at 52.8 million cases and almost 1.3 million deaths as of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.