At-home coronavirus swabs could be just as accurate as ones performed at clinics

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/home-coronavirus-swabs-could-be-just-accurate-ones-performed-clinics-n1234740


Swabbing yourself at home for the coronavirus may be nearly as accurate as when the test is administered by health care workers, a research letter published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open suggests.

In the study, researchers asked 185 people — most of whom were health care workers — who were tested for the coronavirus in a clinic to test themselves again the next day, at home, using a nasal swab.

When the researchers compared the results of the two tests, they found that the at-home swab picked up about 80 percent of the positive cases that were found in the clinic, lead study author Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington, said. For patients with a higher viral load — meaning they had more virus in their nasal cavity — the at-home test picked up 95 percent of the positive cases that were found in the clinic, Chu said.

In particular, the at-home swabs were 80 percent as sensitive and 97 percent as specific as the tests administered in the clinic, the study found. A test’s sensitivity refers to how well the test identifies positive cases, and the specificity refers to how well it detects negative cases. In both cases, the higher, the better.

*snip*

[uppityperson]

1. "could be", "may be"

[HockeyMom]

2. Like a Home Pregnancy Test?

Red your're pregnant (positive) or Blue you are not pregnant (negative). Problem is how many times are you going to test yourself?