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CDC recommends that anyone with any signs or symptoms of COVID-19 get tested, regardless of vaccination status or prior infection. If you get tested because you have symptoms or were potentially exposed to the virus, you should stay away from others pending test results and follow the advice of your health care provider or a public health professional.
CDC recommends that anyone with any signs or symptoms of COVID-19 get tested, regardless of vaccination status or prior infection. If you get tested because you have symptoms or were potentially exposed to the virus, you should stay away from others and follow the advice of your health care provider or a public health professional.
These diagnostic tests are considered the most sensitive for detecting SARS CoV2 infection.
You might take one if you or your doctor think you have COVID-19. You might also be asked to take this type of test if you need to prove to your employer or your college that you are not currently infected before returning to work or campus.
Molecular tests are often called PCR tests, short for a polymerase chain reaction, the lab technique used to detect the virus's genetic material. In most cases, a health care provider will collect nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal secretions from your nose or throat using a specialized swab. (Some molecular tests now use saliva/nasal secretions, which people may find more comfortable.) Turnaround time varies from minutes to days or longer, depending on whether the sample is analyzed onsite or sent to an outside lab.
This diagnostic test is often called a "rapid test" / point of care test because the turnaround time is much quicker than the PCR test. It's also cheaper to produce. As a result, antigen tests are being used to screen large numbers of people, like at airports, a recent article in the journal Nature points out.
From a patient's point of view, antigen testing works similarly to molecular testing. Your health care provider will swab the back of your nose to collect a sample for testing. But instead of waiting days for your results, an antigen test can produce a result in 15 minutes. If you test positive, it is true positive. Antigen tests are precise. If you have COVID symptoms but test negative, it should be confirmed by the RTPCR test as per ICMR guidelines to rule out a false negative.
This test looks for antibodies to the coronavirus. Antibodies are proteins your immune system produces to fight off a foreign invader, such as a virus. A COVID-19 antibody test cannot diagnose active coronavirus infection. All it tells you is whether you've been infected at some point in the past, even if that occurred months ago. Antibodies do not become detectable until a few days – 5 days to 2 weeks, at least after symptoms have started.
There are no FDA-authorized, at-home antibody tests. You'll have to see a health care professional, who will take a blood sample via a finger prick or a blood draw from a vein in your arm. The vast majority of these tests are performed at a central lab, which can take a couple of days to process. The FDA has approved the point-of-care SARS CoV-2 antibody test, making it possible for doctor's offices, hospitals, urgent care centers, and emergency rooms to get an answer within 15 minutes using blood from a person's fingertip.