Amid a resurgence of COVID-19 subvariants, health experts are explaining how to properly test for COVID-19, when you should test and how to interpret the results.
Dr. Sheldon Campbell, Professor of Laboratory Medicine at Yale, told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert," the at-home test is relatively simple, but it has a lot of moving parts.
"The most important thing is to read and follow the directions," he said. "It's important not to let the test freeze and thaw or get too hot because there's delicate biological reagents in them."
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When taking or administering an at-home test, the sure way to get the most reliable results is through a nasal swab. "The tests were tested and proven to work on nasal swabs and I think the best thing to do is still to just do a nasal swab," Campbell explained. "When you swab the throat, when you swab under the tongue, sometimes you get stuff in there that the test may not be well designed to handle."
There are many different brands available to someone searching for an at-home test, but Campbell said they're all very similar with no one better than the others.
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"They're all okay. None of them are super sensitive relative to lab-based PCR tests so people who are at real high risk for bad COVID, people who are immunosuppressed, cancer patients on chemo, elderly folks, even if you have a negative rapid test, it might be better to supplement that and get a lab-based PCR test," he advised.
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