Health officials stress that at-home tests are a vital and accurate way of tracking COVID-19 infections but an initial negative test doesn't mean people are out of the woods
At-home coronavirus screening has become a way of life for many Californians, but some medical experts are now cautioning that one test may not be enough to definitively determine whether someone is infected.
Because of this, the agency “recommends repeat testing following a negative result, whether or not you have COVID-19 symptoms.”The risk of misleading results seems to be higher among symptomatic people infected with the latest dominant Omicron subvariant, BA.5, compared with earlier versions. This, experts say, further illustrates the importance of follow-up testing.
But PCR tests can take a day or longer to process, while rapid test results are available within 15 minutes. The Omicron variant family is generally more likely to begin infection in the throat, Chin-Hong said, meaning “it takes a while to go up to the nose.” But “in a vaccinated and boosted person, they already have immune cells floating around to recognize the enemy. And when you get infected, the immune system activates much faster,” Chin-Hong said. “Now, the immune system is saying, ‘Hey, something’s up!’ and you start to feel ill, but actually, there is not much virus around.”
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