How accurate is the Covid-19 Self Test Rapid Antigen Test?

There is no doubt that Covid-19 Self Test Rapid Antigen Test is not as accurate as PCR testing. However, Covid-19 Self Test Rapid Antigen Test is incredibly accurate in capturing the strongest appeal of a case. Covid-19 Self Test Rapid Antigen Test requires a large amount of virus to be present in any given swab. This means that these tests cannot confirm that someone is not currently infected with SAR-COV-2, but rather can confirm whether a person was infectious at the time they were tested.

Public health expert Zoe McLaren, from the University of Maryland, explains: "The aim of rapid testing is to identify cases with a sufficiently high viral load in the nasal cavity, not to diagnose all COVID-19 cases. The Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen test may detect only 85% of positive cases detected by the PCR test. But crucially, published studies have found that they detect more than 93 per cent of cases that pose a risk of transmission, which is most important for controlling a pandemic. Ellume correctly identified 95% of positive cases and Quidel QuickVue correctly identified 85%. All three tests correctly identify more than 97 percent of negative cases, regardless of their symptoms."