At-home COVID Test

[CG]

The local pharmacies are now selling COVID tests you can take yourself at home.  $24 for 2, pretty easy to do.  They say they're something like 97 or 98% negative.

Mine came back negative, if you're curious.  Figured it was just my usual end-of-the-summer respiratory crud.

[PistolPete]

The local pharmacies are now selling COVID tests you can take yourself at home.  $24 for 2, pretty easy to do.  They say they're something like 97 or 98% negative.

Mine came back negative, if you're curious.  Figured it was just my usual end-of-the-summer respiratory crud.

Very cool.  Do they show you results at home or do you have to send in the test kit to a lab?  An instant at home test that is highly accurate would be a real benefit.

[Raptor]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BinaxNOW-COVID-19-Antigen-Self-Test-2-Tests/142089281

These are available at walmart, cvs and several other places. They offer results at home in ~ 15 minutes.

Note the accuracy of these tests is less than ideal but better than nothing. The good news is that they have than 2% chance of a false positive  but as much as a  15% chance of a false negative. So not ideal.


They also have these test kits which have to shipped to the lab. With results in ~ 48 hours.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/COVID-19-At-Home-Test-Kit-Nasal-Swab-Sample-EXPRESS-Shipping-by-myLAB-Box/993144411

Honestly if you want a COVID test walgreens and CVS have drive through testing in most cities. I would suggest utilizing these since especially the cost will be covered by your insurance or .gov funds. 

[Mr. E. Monkey]

I wonder if that higher chance of a false negative factors in the possibility of people doing the test wrong.

[Raptor]

I wonder if that higher chance of a false negative factors in the possibility of people doing the test wrong.

I guess it would depend upon the accuracy testing method. I would think a good statistical testing protocol should throw out any user errors. However, I have no clue.

Still I would assume it is a safe bet that more user errors would occur with a home self test.

 

[CG]

The local pharmacies are now selling COVID tests you can take yourself at home.  $24 for 2, pretty easy to do.  They say they're something like 97 or 98% negative.

Mine came back negative, if you're curious.  Figured it was just my usual end-of-the-summer respiratory crud.

Very cool.  Do they show you results at home or do you have to send in the test kit to a lab?  An instant at home test that is highly accurate would be a real benefit.

Completely at home.  Takes about 15 minutes.  I picked up the QuickVue one - it says it correctly identified 83.5% of positive specimens and 99.2& of negative specimens. 

I mainly picked it up because I'm going to be around somebody who's had open-heart surgery recently and with my allergies going nuts, figured I should test.  Tested this morning and will test again Monday morning, before I see her.

[boskone]

Huh, that's...interesting.  While the accuracy is lower, it might still be useful for people who want/need to get tested regularly.

I think a doctor administering chemo would want a more sensitive test, but a teacher might be OK with "accuracy in mass" (so to speak).  (Since they're going to be around a bunch of un-vaccinated biowarfare laboratories...er, kids.)

Does it still require scraping the front of your brain with a prod, like the normal tests?

[CG]

Huh, that's...interesting.  While the accuracy is lower, it might still be useful for people who want/need to get tested regularly.

I think a doctor administering chemo would want a more sensitive test, but a teacher might be OK with "accuracy in mass" (so to speak).  (Since they're going to be around a bunch of un-vaccinated biowarfare laboratories...er, kids.)

Does it still require scraping the front of your brain with a prod, like the normal tests?

"Gently insert the swab 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch into the nostril"

Hubby says if you don't touch brain matter, it must not be accurate.

[lurkedthere]

In the UK each person can order 2 tests a week, free at the point of use.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing/regular-rapid-coronavirus-tests-if-you-do-not-have-symptoms/

[boskone]

In the UK each person can order 2 tests a week, free at the point of use.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing/regular-rapid-coronavirus-tests-if-you-do-not-have-symptoms/

I dunno if it's any national thing, but you can get tested for free all over the place around here.  No idea about limits, though.

[boskone]

Huh, that's...interesting.  While the accuracy is lower, it might still be useful for people who want/need to get tested regularly.

I think a doctor administering chemo would want a more sensitive test, but a teacher might be OK with "accuracy in mass" (so to speak).  (Since they're going to be around a bunch of un-vaccinated biowarfare laboratories...er, kids.)

Does it still require scraping the front of your brain with a prod, like the normal tests?

"Gently insert the swab 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch into the nostril"

That's not so bad; I think the biggest problem I'd have is getting distracted and just picking my nose. 

Hubby says if you don't touch brain matter, it must not be accurate.

I know a few customers and at least one of our field people who'd never test accurately, then, because they must have no brain matter.

[NT2C]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BinaxNOW-COVID-19-Antigen-Self-Test-2-Tests/142089281

These are available at walmart, cvs and several other places. They offer results at home in ~ 15 minutes.

Note the accuracy of these tests is less than ideal but better than nothing. The good news is that they have than 2% chance of a false positive  but as much as a  15% chance of a false negative. So not ideal.


They also have these test kits which have to shipped to the lab. With results in ~ 48 hours.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/COVID-19-At-Home-Test-Kit-Nasal-Swab-Sample-EXPRESS-Shipping-by-myLAB-Box/993144411

Honestly if you want a COVID test walgreens and CVS have drive through testing in most cities. I would suggest utilizing these since especially the cost will be covered by your insurance or .gov funds.

Okay, it's late, I've an absolute killer of a sinus headache, and I'm highly medicated, and that math just is not making sense to me.  It's a binary result, yes/no, positive/negative, how can the accuracy of the two results differ?  Or does that one test give both a positive and a negative reading at the same time?  Yeah, my brain just doesn't want to wrap itself around the math here.  It wants a long hot shower with plenty of steam and about ten hours on a soft pillow.  It just seems to be that if the positive result accuracy is 85% then the negative result accuracy should also be 85%.  Two sides of the same coin, no?

[Raptor]

 Simply put...the test can say you have covid and be wrong. It can also say you do not have covid and be wrong.The result is binary pass/fail but the causes of the failure are not.

Each failure is due to different causes which have a different probability of occurring. Hence 2 different %.

[boskone]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BinaxNOW-COVID-19-Antigen-Self-Test-2-Tests/142089281

These are available at walmart, cvs and several other places. They offer results at home in ~ 15 minutes.

Note the accuracy of these tests is less than ideal but better than nothing. The good news is that they have than 2% chance of a false positive  but as much as a  15% chance of a false negative. So not ideal.


They also have these test kits which have to shipped to the lab. With results in ~ 48 hours.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/COVID-19-At-Home-Test-Kit-Nasal-Swab-Sample-EXPRESS-Shipping-by-myLAB-Box/993144411

Honestly if you want a COVID test walgreens and CVS have drive through testing in most cities. I would suggest utilizing these since especially the cost will be covered by your insurance or .gov funds.

Okay, it's late, I've an absolute killer of a sinus headache, and I'm highly medicated, and that math just is not making sense to me.  It's a binary result, yes/no, positive/negative, how can the accuracy of the two results differ?  Or does that one test give both a positive and a negative reading at the same time?  Yeah, my brain just doesn't want to wrap itself around the math here.  It wants a long hot shower with plenty of steam and about ten hours on a soft pillow.  It just seems to be that if the positive result accuracy is 85% then the negative result accuracy should also be 85%.  Two sides of the same coin, no?

It's not a perfect test, there's a bit of overlap in there.

Let's say a sample has 100 COVIDs.

• If you have a lot of COVIDs, you have the disease.
• But if you have very few COVIDs, you might just have some stuck in your nose.

So there's a point in there where you maybe-do and maybe-don't have COVID, and the test is more likely to assume you don't.  Thus, high false negative and low false positive.

It probably makes the test cheap enough to easily sell, while still being accurate enough for home use.  Not as good as a full-up test, but better than standing around in line to get your nose roto-rootered.

Does that help, at all?

[Crosscut]

There's a fairly reliable method to increase the chances of a false negative result if someone had a couple hours of advance notice and a desire to do so.



This was from saliva testing after mouth rinsing, but seems reasonable that snot after nasal spraying would produce a similar result.  Chart stolen from here, they used the same PCR method that the home tests use.   

[sheddi]

As lurkedthere says, those sound very much like the "at home" tests all schoolchildren (and their families) in the UK were taking over the last four months. Including everyone at Casa de Sheddi. The box pictured below holds seven tests and is sized to fit through most British letter flaps.



Having taken probably 20-30 of them, I've got pretty good at the technique. The throat swabs still make me gag, and (for some reason) the nasal ones almost always cause me to giggle.

PS always swab your throat first, then your nose.