ATLANTA — The Food and Drug Administration says home COVID-19 tests may not be as good at picking up the omicron variant that’s behind the latest surge.
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Channel 2′s Jorge Estevez spoke with Dr. Jane Morgan, director of the COVID-19 task force at Piedmont Hospital, about what may be different and how to make sure you’re getting accurate results.
Morgan said to always follow the directions carefully for the test.
“When we look at these home antigen tests, we want you to absolutely follow the instructions that are given,” she said.
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Morgan said that omicron gathers in different areas, which may be why it presents different symptoms.
“With omicron, we know that it gathers more in the throat and in the upper respiratory system then delta, which was deeper in the lungs, which was why we think there was more pneumonia with delta than with the omicron variant,” she said.
Still, Morgan says it’s always important to follow the direction on home tests and not try swabbing the throat instead of the nose.
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“I would say absolutely follow your instructions,” she said. “If you need to do serial test, meaning you test over two or three days as your symptoms are changing. Please do so because a negative test can be a false negative test. And we see more of those with the omicron variant than we saw previously with delta.”
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