test positive for...

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Phaedrus

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A case could actually be made for using the en dash instead of the hyphen:

COVID-19–positive

Since "19" is joined to "COVID" by a hyphen, the en dash between "19" and "positive" clarifies that "positive" belongs to the preceding hyphenated duo.

For what it's worth, I have encountered this style of punctuation in something written by Noam Chomsky himself:

"This leaves e[SUB]j[/SUB], an element that we will refer to as PRO, an empty category with a restricted distribution to which we will return; in particular, it appears in nonCase-marked subject position, as in (93)" (p. 104, emphasis added).

- Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. Westport, CN: Praeger.

The phrase "non–Case-marked subject position" contains an en dash between "non" and "Case" and a hyphen between "Case" and "marked."

The punctuation clarifies that the reference is to something that is not marked with Case rather than to something that is marked with non-Case.
 

jutfrank

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a) He tested positive for COVID-19.
That's correct.

Can we say the following sentence:

b) He tested COVID-19 positive. ( I've seen this used in many (Indian) newspapers)

I suppose you could, if you really want. But why would you want?

To me, b) sounds awkward and seems grammatically incorrect, because it looks like "covid-19" is modifying the noun "positive", adjectivally, whereas in a), this is not the case.

I agree it's slightly awkward. I think that shows that you should just use the version in sentence a).

In sentence B, "covid-19" is an attributive noun, a noun acting as an adjective.

That's not right. It isn't attributing anything. The following word (positive) is an adjective, not a noun, so there's nothing to attribute.

We've used the same construction in HIV-positive for decades now.

That isn't quite comparable. The term HIV-positive is attributive, since we talk about 'HIV-positive people' and say things like He's HIV-positive.
 
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