How reliable are the at home COVID kits sent home by MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

You are becoming tiresome. Go read up on long covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

Took child for testing with pediatrician. Flu with pneumonia. On meds and probably will be out for rest of week. Doctor says he was contagious prior to showing symptoms. With no masks, there are probably more cases at school. He needs to be fever free with no cough before doctor says he can return to school.

A lingering cough from a (past) infection isn’t reason to continue isolating. The criteria is generally fever-free for 24 hours without medication, with other symptoms improving (but not necessarily fully resolved).

The kid has pneumonia. Not covid. Let the doctor give the medical advice. For all you know the kid has the contagious kind of pneumonia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

If the kid was fine, they would not be posting here. The end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our school there is a stomach bug rather than COVID going around.

Which school? Ours had a nasty stomach bug in late March and I'm NOT trying to have another one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Flu type A (with a doctor’s test). Many of same symptoms as COVID. Kid was vaccinated against flu and is really sick. Doctor said this flu strain was not covered by last fall’s flu shot.

Just came on here to say it might be the flu. Body aches, fever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

Took child for testing with pediatrician. Flu with pneumonia. On meds and probably will be out for rest of week. Doctor says he was contagious prior to showing symptoms. With no masks, there are probably more cases at school. He needs to be fever free with no cough before doctor says he can return to school.

A lingering cough from a (past) infection isn’t reason to continue isolating. The criteria is generally fever-free for 24 hours without medication, with other symptoms improving (but not necessarily fully resolved).

The kid has pneumonia. Not covid. Let the doctor give the medical advice. For all you know the kid has the contagious kind of pneumonia.

Doctor said flu type A is extremely contagious and my child should stay home until there’s no cough. With every cough, he is spreading germs. I was the one taking care of him and today is my first day with symptoms. Going to doctor for a test and Tamiflu.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

Took child for testing with pediatrician. Flu with pneumonia. On meds and probably will be out for rest of week. Doctor says he was contagious prior to showing symptoms. With no masks, there are probably more cases at school. He needs to be fever free with no cough before doctor says he can return to school.

A lingering cough from a (past) infection isn’t reason to continue isolating. The criteria is generally fever-free for 24 hours without medication, with other symptoms improving (but not necessarily fully resolved).

The kid has pneumonia. Not covid. Let the doctor give the medical advice. For all you know the kid has the contagious kind of pneumonia.

Ok, but no doctor is going to tell a patient with pneumonia to isolate until a cough fully resolves. If the OP believes the doctor said that, she should follow up with the doctor to seek clarification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

Took child for testing with pediatrician. Flu with pneumonia. On meds and probably will be out for rest of week. Doctor says he was contagious prior to showing symptoms. With no masks, there are probably more cases at school. He needs to be fever free with no cough before doctor says he can return to school.

A lingering cough from a (past) infection isn’t reason to continue isolating. The criteria is generally fever-free for 24 hours without medication, with other symptoms improving (but not necessarily fully resolved).

The kid has pneumonia. Not covid. Let the doctor give the medical advice. For all you know the kid has the contagious kind of pneumonia.

Doctor said flu type A is extremely contagious and my child should stay home until there’s no cough. With every cough, he is spreading germs. I was the one taking care of him and today is my first day with symptoms. Going to doctor for a test and Tamiflu.

Symptoms like cough and congestion frequently linger well after an infection is cleared. Ask the doctor what they meant. They didn’t mean absolutely no coughing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much misinformation here. The rapid antigen tests are highly accurate when you follow the instructions and use both tests. They'll pick up 90% of cases within 48 hours of when you'd otherwise test positive on a PCR test.

People were quick to write off rapid tests for Omicron based on a single early study. Subsequent studies showed they do just as well against Omicron as Delta.

Agreed! Also the fact that so many people are vaccinated and/or have precious infection means your symptoms are representative of your body fighting the infection before it possibly starts replicating. Back in 2020, people were silently infectious before any symptoms. The symptoms for a naive body indicated damage done by the virus (vs the early recognition of the virus and immune response).

Bottom line, yes, expect to test negative during early symptoms. Then try testing again the next day. Omicron is fast, you’ll likely get that positive soon if it’s there and you’re infectious. PCR only gets you a 12-24 hour head start on detection over the antigen tests now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child (who attends a school with top percentage of cases of COVID) who has been sick for a week. We have tested for COVID using the at home kit he was given at school and it came back negative. Are these kits accurate?

How’s your kid? Fine? Getting better? Great to hear it. The end.

Took child for testing with pediatrician. Flu with pneumonia. On meds and probably will be out for rest of week. Doctor says he was contagious prior to showing symptoms. With no masks, there are probably more cases at school. He needs to be fever free with no cough before doctor says he can return to school.

Sorry to hear that. It actually happened to my preschooler (prone to upper respiratory infections) in 2019. I didn’t post to DCUM about it and lament lack of mask usage.

[Anonymous]

My dd only had mild sore throat on day one. She developed nasal congestion on day two, so we used a home test. It was negative. On day 3 she felt worse and had a headache, so we tested again and she had a very faint positive. We confirmed with a test at pediatrician’s office. In our experience, the home test was pretty damn accurate.

[Anonymous]

We had a similar experience this week. Tested negative on Monday so we sent kid to school. Tested negative Tuesday with mild congestion and sneezing. Then Wednesday, kid had a headache and dizziness so we tested again and got a faint positive. I tested myself and had a positive as well. Are schools still offering the online instruction for quarantined kids?