NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) – An alert from the Food And Drug Administration on the Abbott I-D Now COVID test. The rapid test used daily at the White House — not as reliable.
Studies show high rates of false negatives.
The latest from a small NYC study, “showing that it missed about 30 percent of cases and when a dry swab was used, up to 50 percent of cases,” says Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Jaimie Meyer with Yale Medicine.
What should you do if you test negative?
“If you do this Abbott ID Now test and it’s negative, and there’s still relatively high suspicion for COVID disease,” answers Dr. Meyer. “They need another test and probably the PCR based test that’s run in the lab which has sort of become our gold standard.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its latest emergency COVID advisory. This one on the rare multi-system inflammatory syndrome effecting children and young adults up to 21-years-old.
“This warning is really meant for healthcare providers,” says Dr. Meyer. “If they do see children with very high persistent fevers, and evidence of organ damage and they test positive for COVID, that is something that should be reported to their local or country or state health departments.”
Still – no scientific evidence link to COVID.
“We really need more data to understand the connection between this syndrome and COVID,” says Dr. Meyer.
There is more data coming in on how COVID droplets can spread through the air. National Institutes of Health researchers are learning that loud talking can generate coronavirus that could linger up to 14 minutes.
Dr. Meyer explains, “Really what this means for those of us, especially those of who are talkers, is that in the absence of a wide spread testing strategy, in the absence of an effective vaccine, that we really need to be maintaining our social distancing and using cloth based face coverings.”
The study also underscores that by simply talking, that infected people with symptoms or no symptoms could transmit COVID-19 to others.