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Desperately seeking to find a seemingly responsible way to hold dinner parties, some people have started to get tests for the coronavirus as a way to clear themselves to attend dinner parties without needing to wear masks or keep their distance.

That’s absolutely the wrong thing to do, according to Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health.

Ferrer said on Monday that she has heard of groups of young adults going to get tested for the coronavirus on a Thursday in hopes of getting the negative results by Saturday morning, and then having a dinner party on Saturday night. But such tests provide a false sense of security — and engaging in this practice can still result in the dinner party becoming a super-spreading event that can transmit the highly contagious virus widely.

“That’s actually a false sense of security. It’s a false narrative,” Ferrer said. “Your test result that you got Saturday morning was from Thursday when you got tested, and it said, ‘On Thursday, you were negative,’” Ferrer said. “It says nothing about whether you’re still negative on Saturday.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.