Better to Take Test Again and Keep Avergae of the Two
As of May 2022, the U.South. is experiencing another uptick in the number of COVID-nineteen cases. High rates of infection in Europe and Asia, along with the continued emergence of new sub-variants, such as omicron BA.4 and BA.5, raise concerns that some other surge could exist on the way.
Even though need for COVID-nineteen tests greatly overwhelmed supply earlier in the pandemic, rapid dwelling tests are more available today. While home tests provide a quick, accurate outcome, the flip side is that many test results are no longer reported to health regime. The power behind widely bachelor over-the-counter testing is that people can chop-chop and conveniently know their infection status early on to prevent spreading the virus to others.
We're part of a squad at UMass Chan Medical School that has been studying COVID-19 molecular, or PCR, and antigen test performance over the past two years. During this time, we've helped multiple companies generate the information needed to motility their products through the Food and Drug Administration's Emergency Use Authorization procedure and into commercial development.
We accept also conducted big-scale, real-earth studies to empathize how over-the-counter rapid tests perform in comparison to PCR tests in detecting dissimilar variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, including among people without symptoms. We have too studied whether mass distribution of rapid antigen tests prior to a surge helps prevent spread, and whether users of these tests are likely to report the results to health departments.
These studies are starting time to provide researchers similar us with show virtually how these tests perform and how we tin use them to make the all-time public health recommendations moving forward.
At-home tests and the omicron variant
When the omicron variant emerged in late November 2021, scientists rapidly responded to decide how PCR and rapid tests performed confronting this new variant.
Researchers accept demonstrated that an infected private will examination positive on a PCR examination one to two days before an antigen test. This is because a PCR exam works by amplifying the genetic material in a sample and is therefore able to detect extremely small amounts of viral material. In contrast, an over-the-counter test tin can just find the viral proteins present in the sample.
Early in the omicron surge, effectually December 2021, people wondered about the power of rapid tests to detect the new variant. Additionally, some preliminary tests proved that rapid tests that place the omicron variant showed a one-to-two-day delay in a positive issue compared to tests performed with the delta variant. This led to an FDA announcement on December. 28, urging caution in the utilise of tests for the detection of omicron.
The role of rapid antigen tests
During that time, our grouping was working on a report examining the operation of over-the-counter tests in the general population. We used data from this report to look at the functioning of these tests both before and after omicron became the dominant variant in the The states. Our written report, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was unique because it was testing people for the COVID-nineteen virus over the course of two weeks, and thus we were able to observe emerging infections.
In our analysis of approximately 150 individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the study, we made two major observations. The start is that over-the-counter tests were able to observe the omicron variant likewise every bit the delta variant.
Another is that series testing – two tests taken 24 to 36 hours apart – is critical with rapid tests. This is considering nosotros observed that if a person had an infection that was detected by a PCR test for at least two days in a row, one or two of the over-the-counter tests taken over the aforementioned time likewise detected the infection more than than lxxx per centum of the fourth dimension. In comparing, a single rapid exam detected far fewer infections.
Previous research past our study team and others suggests that over-the-counter tests are more than likely to detect an infection among people who are actively contagious.
Over-the-counter tests and reporting
In 2021, we evaluated whether mass distribution of over-the-counter tests tin can reduce manual of the virus by comparing new cases in Washtenaw County, Michigan, which has a population of 370,000. Ii communities that brand up 140,000 of the full county population used more rapid tests and prevented an average of xl cases of COVID-19 per twenty-four hours during the delta surge. Our findings suggest that rapid antigen tests are a critical public health tool that can assist reduce the spread of disease during a surge.
But much of the research to appointment on over-the-counter SARS-CoV-ii tests has been done in controlled study settings. Nosotros want to know whether the performance of tests in a more realistic environment mirrors that observed in clinical studies.
One question is whether people will written report over-the-counter tests to health departments. Nosotros conducted several studies where people signed up using their smartphone, received tests in the mail and took and reported tests via a smartphone app.
Our initial assay of information from the Michigan study described to a higher place shows that 98 per centum of individuals agreed to ship examination results to their state health department. But but about 1 in iii participants at highest risk of infection – for example, those who didn't mask in public and weren't vaccinated – sent in their results. Participants who closely followed the instructions in the phone app reported more than test results to their local health department than those who didn't follow the instructions. Nosotros also observed that negative exam results were reported more than positive results.
In another study, we showed that incentives make a difference when reporting test results. Sites with reporting incentives such as cash payments demonstrated significantly higher levels of reporting to their state wellness department than sites without incentives. In total, 75 percent of results logged in the phone app were reported. In all communities, positive tests were significantly less reported than negative tests.
These results indicate that app-based reporting with incentives may be an constructive way to increase reporting of rapid tests for COVID-19. Nevertheless, increasing adoption of the app is a critical start step.
These studies are ongoing and we continue to gain more insights into how people use rapid antigen tests. If you lot are interested in contributing to this scientific discipline, you tin run across if y'all are eligible for a report. 
This article is republished from The Conversation nether a Creative Commons license. Read the original commodity.
Source: https://www.umassmed.edu/news/news-archives/2022/05/just-how-accurate-are-rapid-antigen-tests-two-testing-experts-explain-the-latest-data/
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