According to the initial studies, The omicron variant of the Covid 19 virus has been found to be milder in terms of severity and highly contagious than the previous versions. Even the latest analysis done by medical researchers and scientists in the United States has found that the omicron strain is milder and its early symptoms are sometimes unknown.
Experts Warn Home-Based Testing Kits Are Not Effective Enough!
Now, this situation has raised many questions on the testing facilities and especially on the self-testing kits which have become a favorite for Americans due to their wide availability and doctor’s prescription is not required to avail this testing kit.
As per the reports from the sources, the rapid home-based Covid 19 testing kits are not effective enough to detect early omicron virus. The two widely available antigen-based self-testing kits in the US are Abbott Binaxnow and Quidel Quickvue. Now the medical experts have been asking tough questions from these two rapid testing kits manufacturing companies about their efficiency.
They have drastically failed to detect the virus in its initial days. The tests were also conducted on people with a severe level of omicron virus.
During the previous press briefing by President Joe Biden after meeting the rapid covid 19 response team, he announced that his administration has been working on acquiring 500 million testing kits and will be investing a substantial amount of finances so that there is no shortage of testing facilities for the entire population.
Also the reports available suggested that on average both antigen-based rapid testing kits were able to detect the infection after at least three days and it has become a major cause for the rising cases in the country as people are not able to discover the virus and feel like they are not infected by the omicron.
According to medical experts, the PCR test is much more effective than the home testing kits. The PCR test takes some time to release the reports but shows much better results than the latter one.
It has been also argued that the omicron version changes its nature when tested with different testing facilities. But some health care experts have been arguing that it doesn’t mean that people should stop using the testing kits on the basis of a small study conducted on just 30 sample sizes. We need more results to come to a final conclusion.
The scientists are already working on the changing behavior of the omicron variant and till this time some officials are suggesting to go for saliva-based testing rather than self-testing because it has been reported at various medical centers that negative people were found positive after they were tested with the PCR testing facility.
Dr. Fauci has also been keeping an eye on such events and we are just waiting to see how he reacts to such incidents. The US CDC has not said anything on this and might conduct a press conference in some days if these results will show some good evidence.
