Prognosis
Rapid Covid Tests Are Missing Early Infections, Virologist Says
- Tests most useful in showing if symptomatic people have Covid
- Shortcoming points up risk of the widely used tests: Drosten
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Rapid-antigen tests are failing to detect the first few days of Covid-19 infections, a period when people are already capable of transmitting the virus, according to a prominent German virologist.
The shortcoming could undermine efforts to use these fast and cheap tests, already widely deployed across Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., to determine if someone can safely enter a place where people are congregating, Christian Drosten, head of the virology department at Berlin’s Charité hospital, said on a podcast.