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

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

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[quote=Anonymous]The Omicron strains are especially notorious for not being present in large quantities in nasal mucus, so there’s often not   enough viral particles on the swab for a rapid test to pick up the infection until you’ve been sick for quite a while, if at all.

In the UK, they started having people swab their throats as well as their noses, but the CDC says the rapid tests sold in the US aren’t made in a way that makes throat swabs useful.

In other words, if you suspect the rapid isn’t accurate, get a PCR to be sure. They can pick up an Omicron infection more accurately because they’re looking for different things. It’s not necessarily the fault of the rapid tests, which were created to pick up strains that behaved differently than the ones currently prevalent, but right now they’re still the only rapid option.

FWIW, Sameday Testing’s free-with-insurance 48-hour tests are currently returning results in about 12 hours. I had one in the late afternoon last week, and had results in my inbox when I woke up the next morning.   [/quote]

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