The fast- spreading Omicron variant has made us more reliant on rapid-fire at- home antigen tests to tell us if we’ve Covid-19. But should we be swabbing our throats as well as our tips?
For now, the guidance depends on where you live. Some scientists have said people can transmit Omicron when it has infected their throat and slaver but before the contagion has reached their tips, so swabbing the nostrils beforehand in the infection won’t pick it up.
A small recentU.S. study backed up that view. PCR tests of the slaver from 29 people infected with Omicron detected the contagion on average three days before nose samples were positive in antigen, or so- called side inflow, tests.
In general, rapid-fire tests have a lower perceptivity than lab- reused PCR tests, meaning they produce further false negatives. But if you test positive, you nearly clearly have Covid-19, making antigen tests a important tool in diving the epidemic as demand for PCR tests due to Omicron overwhelms laboratories.
As a result of recent studies, some experts in the United States have now advised antigen test druggies should swab the throat before swabbing the nose.
All the antigen tests with exigency use authorizations from theU.S. Food and Drug Administration use nasal samples and it has expressed enterprises over the safety of throat swabbing at home, saying druggies should follow manufacturers’instructions.
In Israel, a top health functionary has said people tone-testing for Covid-19 should swab their throat as well as their nose when using rapid-fire antigen tests, indeed if it goes against instructions issued by the manufacturer.
Some other countries, including the United Kingdom, have approved rapid-fire antigen tests that swab both the throat and nose, or just the nose.
In Germany, the minister for health has said they will study how dependable rapid-fire antigen tests are in detecting the Omicron variant and publish a list of the most accurate products.