Why Rapid COVID-19 Test Results Are Getting More Confusing

After a recent COVID-19 exposure, Dr. Christina Astley tested positive on an at-home test—but just barely. The line signifying a positive result was so faint that Astley, an endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, took a picture and applied a camera filter to confirm it was there at all. Further complicating matters, Astley later tested negative with a different manufacturer’s kit. Even for a physician who is “hyper-vigilant” about COVID-19, Astley says, the results were hard to interpret. Experts say ambiguous results like these may be more common now—but not because rapid tests aren’t working. In fact, these confusing results could actually be a good thing, at least as far as your immune system goes. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] When a rapid test is clearly positive, with a dark line showing up almost immediately, that means there’s been “a failure of the immune system,” says Dr. Michael Mina, chief science officer at home-testing company eMed and a former Harvard University epidemiologist. A blazing positive essentially means your body is “letting the virus get out of control,” he says. At this point in the pandemic, when most people have been vaccinated multiple times and infected at least once, our immune systems are getting better at responding to the virus before it reaches that point, Mina says. That means exposures may result in shorter illnesses, if they lead to positive t...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news