Doctors opine on how best to use rapid, at-home COVID tests and which ones are more accurate

When in doubt, get tested, says Dr. Shira Doron, hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. “At-home tests might be less sensitive than lab-based PCR tests, but since they’re often used in situations [when] you would not have tested otherwise, we like to say any test is better than no test,” says Doron. And definitely get tested if you are showing any COVID symptoms, or if you may have been exposed to someone with the virus. Doron’s pick for a rapid, at-home test is the Binax NOW COVID-19 test, $23.99 for two at Walgreens. He says these tests have been “the most well studied, and have been shown to be very accurate.” What’s more, these tests recently got FDA authorization for over-the-counter, at-home serial screening.

And Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, says that using rapid antigen tests — which is what many of the at-home tests are — is a reasonable thing to do if you’re not feeling well. “If you want to be admitted to an event or you want to be sure you don’t give your grandmother or aunt with diabetes COVID-19, you can get one of these for yourself and you don’t have to go into a provider,” says Schaffner. (The QuickVue At-Home OTC Covid-19 tests, $23,99 for two at Walgreens also got that FDA at-home authorization.)

Just how accurate are at-home rapid tests? 

They have higher rates of false positives and false negatives than PCR tests, so if you have no symptoms and get a positive result, Doron recommends seeking a PCR test right away. [The FDA also has a handy guide breaking down the differences between tests here.] And keep in mind that, “someone can test negative on an antigen test, and at that time or very quickly thereafter, be potentially contagious with the virus,” says Garner. Adds Doron: “A false negative can result in an infected person exposing others.”  ...