Dr. Mark Kortepeter, an infectious disease expert, explains the advantages and disadvantages of home Covid diagnostic tests and how to interpret the results.
President Joe Biden recently promised to acquire one billion domestic immediate diagnostic test kits for Covid-19 to make them available to all Americans. The U. S. Postal Service The U. S. Department of Homeland Security has begun shipping the kits, which can be ordered through any resident through this website. Having simple access to rapid diagnostics has been a challenge since the beginning of the pandemic, but it remains a must-have component in controlling the ongoing spread.
Using Tests
One of the most demanding situations for everyone to get diagnostic kits is to make sure they are used correctly. The verification kits I recently got from my condition were very undeniable to use, but there are still tactics to misinterpret them.
The kit I won required me to rub my nostrils and then insert the swab into a liquid medium. After shaking the swab in the liquid, I removed it and threw it away. Then I dropped 3 drops of liquid into an oblong diagnostic strip and observed the liquid wick on the strip. I waited for the mandatory 15 minutes, however, in one or two minutes, a red line gave the impression: under the letter “C”. The area below the letter “T” remained white. One line means I don’t have covid. Two lines means I have covid.
The explanation of why the red line below the letter C implies that the verification worked correctly. Someone who hasn’t read the commands might mistakenly assume that line C was for Covid, but that means “control. “The T line stands for “to control”. If you see a “check” red line and a “control” red line, the verification is positive for Covid. But if the C line does not appear, it means that there is a challenge with verification and the effects are not reliable.
Time is critical
With any diagnostic check, timing is paramount. Home test kits detect viral proteins. They are not as difficult to detect at low levels of virus as PCR tests, which detect viral genetic material. could do after a user is infected. This leads to a non-unusual phenomenon that we see with any diagnostic check. At the beginning of the disease, even if someone is already contagious or has health problems, the control is likely to be negative. this is a “false negative” verification result. In this situation, it is very important to stick to verification with a PCR test, especially if you have recently been exposed to someone with Covid or if you are feeling unhealthy with Covid-related symptoms. .
The challenge of the moment is that the diagnostic kits of the house do not remain positive as long as there is a PCR control. Therefore, whoever has had Covid and is checked after having recovered, possibly also has a negative control. This is another example of a false-negative control result. In this case, if there is good faith that you want to know if you had Covid, then a follow-up PCR check is needed. be positive in a user who has symptoms.
That of an incubation period
Every infectious disease has what is called an incubation period: the microbe needs time to grow in an animal or human before it causes disease or spreads further. Once a virus has entered your respiratory tract, it replicates exponentially within your body until it reaches high enough levels in your secretions to be detected by a test. Sometimes the grades are too low for verification to detect, but still high enough to infect others. This is a main challenge with house control kits. So if you just had an exposure, if it is checked without delay afterwards, the check will be negative. The incubation period for Covid is from 2 to 14 days and differs from user to user. That is why it is more productive to wait about five days before checking after an exhibition. Otherwise, you can waste a verification kit. In the meantime, be careful about your contact with others, because at first you may be asymptomatic while Covid is brewing inside you, but you may still have the possibility of transmitting it.
PCR tests are much better at detecting lower levels of viruses. Therefore, they can test positive earlier than homemade kits, but they take longer, are more complex to execute, and therefore need to be treated in a lab.
Because PCR tests are more sensitive, once they become positive, they can remain positive for weeks after an illness. However, having a positive test after an illness does not necessarily mean that it is still contagious. you want to secrete live viral waste in the mucus in your airways. About 10 days after the onset of your disease, this no longer occurs and the maximum amounts of your secretions fall on the fifth day. That’s why the CDC advised that if you feel better five days after the onset of symptoms, you can leave isolation and continue to wear a mask for five more days as a precaution to minimize the chances of Covid spreading.
Finally, if you think you’ve been exposed or think you may have health issues with Covid, wear a mask until you can make sure with a diagnostic check that you don’t have Covid. Others around you will appreciate it.
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