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Questions are being raised about the efficacy of Covid-19 rapid tests and whether they provide true confidence for people possibly exposed to the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The consensus seems to be that if you think you’ve been exposed to the COVID virus – at least with Omicron – if you have access to rapid testing then it pays to test repeatedly, possibly several times daily.
Rapid lateral flow tests have always been imperfect, detecting an average of 72 per cent of symptomatic cases, and 58 per cent of asymptomatic ones, according to a meta-analysis of studies by the medical database the Cochrane Library.
Tim Peto, professor of medicine at Oxford University, said the scientific community had “very poor methods” of telling if people were infectious. “The LFTs are the best of a bad lot,” he told the Financial Times.
The UK government is maintaining faith in its pioneering rapid testing programme to control the spread of infection while it resists more drastic measures. It has introduced, for England, negative tests as an option to vaccination certificates to access large events and nightclubs, and asked the vaccinated to test every day for a week after they come into contact with Covid-19, rather than isolating.
“We have always been clear that rapid testing is a vital tool in curbing the spread of Covid-19 because it helps to rapidly uncover hidden cases of the virus in people without symptoms,” the UKHSA said.
Meantime, evidence is emerging that the rapid tests used in North America are probably not perfectly suited for detecting Omicron.
