Covid-19 rapid tests are not reliable, according to recent reports. Also known as antigen tests, the rapid tests for coronavirus have been producing false negatives and false positives, ProPublica reported last month. In the case of singer Erykah Badu, she got a negative in one nostril and a positive in the other.
The issue allegedly lies in the fact that antigen tests “can only detect samples with a higher viral load” while molecular PCR tests can “detect snippets of the virus’s genetic material.”
In September, President Donald Trump celebrated rapid tests, saying they were “from a different planet,” The Atlantic reported. Not only were rapid tests affordable at $5 per test, advocates boasted, they were also fast with results being available in 15 minutes.
However, the old adage, “When something seems too good to be true, it probably is,” applies to covid-19 rapid tests, according to experts.
“Part of the problem is this administration has continuously played catch-up,” Harvard Medical School physician Dr. Abraar Karan told ProPublica.
Since 40 percent of virus infections come from asymptomatic people, Melissa Miller, a clinical microbiology lab director at University of North Carolina said distributing less accurate rapid tests in all scenarios is “completely irresponsible.”
Geoffrey Baird, the acting laboratory-medicine chair at the University of Washington, agreed.
“The point I’m trying to make here, and I’ll be blunt, is that antigen testing will not and cannot work for asymptomatic screening, and [it] will probably kill a lot of people,” Baird told The Atlantic.
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According to ProPublica the government was slow to acknowledge the flaw in rapid tests, instead threatening the state of Nevada with sanctions if it didn’t continue to use the tests after it reported false positives.
Experts also agree the rollout of the rapid testing by the White House was not done efficiently or responsibly. They stressed testing is just one component of stopping the spread of covid-19 and had to be done in conjunction with masking, social distancing, etc. to be effective.
“Testing is a belt-and-suspenders approach that adds incremental safety,” Baird said. “Belts and suspenders only work, though, when you are wearing pants.”
Though the Food and Drug Administration did not support using rapid antigen tests on asymptomatic people, officials in the Trump administration pushed for them anyway.
“One branch of the government is saying, ‘Use this test for asymptomatic people,’ and then on the other side, they are saying, ‘Use this test for symptomatic people,’” Baird continued.
While worried by false positives, advocates of the rapid tests say some testing is better than none.
“The point people are really missing is: What is the alternative? The alternative is no testing. Most K–12 students are not getting tested,” Harvard University epidemiology professor Michael Mina said. “Every time we can pull a positive person out of the population, we stop tens, hundreds, or thousands of cases.”
