I offer tests to friends and family. I have a drawer full of tests at this point! It is kind of confrontative to ask them why not. But at this point this unwillingness is affecting me socially! Once it’s warm out here I guess I will return to walking with people.
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My daughter works on a trading floor. Last week she sat between 2 people all day who tested positive and she wore a mask all day, she didn’t get infected.
My kids have been going back to office few times a week now. They do PCR tests regularly and their firms provide free rapid tests.
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You think? Our kid had a negative PCR test…so we celebrated a holiday with her the next day. The day after the holiday celebration in the morning, she got a scratchy throat and cough…and on her next PCR test, she was positive. (Because of her work, she can get a PCR test every day) Oh well. Luckily we parents didn’t get sick…and DH had not had his booster at that point.
We have four boxes of rapid tests in our cabinet…so 8 tests. I hope we don’t have the need to use them. I’m not ordering more free ones.
I really do think so. I don’t think it’s a shock or incredibly lucky that you parents didn’t get sick. From my understanding, the point of the test (especially rapid) is not proof that a person couldn’t be infected and be incubating the virus; the point is that it is pretty great at showing when a person is contagious. Your story makes me think the test worked as designed….that your kid, despite being infectED, wasn’t infectIOUS when she was with you (like I said, I feel like I’m most comfortable within 12 hours of a rapid test, I’m less comfortable with older tests). So I would definitely prefer being surrounded by people who I know got negative rapid tests in the past 12 hours than people who didn’t take tests, but were wearing masks. Some of those mask-wearers-but-not-tested people could be very highly actively infectIOUS , and their mask-wearing wouldn’t be enough to make me feel comfortable around a highly infectious person. I’d rather be with negative-test-takers. But others may prefer the other situation.
Has anyone heard about how we can obtain at home Covid test kits covered by Medicare? Last I looked, they said the plan will roll out in Spring. Well, it is Spring now and I have heard nothing.
FYI: the expiration date has been extended for 3 months for some of the at home test kits.
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Here’s the Medicare covid test link.
After getting our second boosters we asked the pharmacist about the COVID test kits for Medicare clients. She took our info and called us a few hours later, kits were in and ready.
A day later we picked up 8 tests each, 16 total, supposedly a month’s supply (2 tests each per week). It was all incredibly easy.
I just ordered my second set to be mailed here.
I have did an order for an additional 8 tests from from my insurance last week since H and I have both had colds and we were using our supply of home tests to make sure it wasn’t Covid.
I had a PCR test last Friday when I went to the doctor for an ear infection as a result of the cold. The doctor said he was pretty sure I did not have Covid as I had Omicron in January, but he ordered the test anyway and I got the negative result yesterday.
There is a third round of tests that can be ordered. You can order 8 (2 sets of 4). Since I didn’t order the second round of tests I was able to order 8 more. We are going on a Viking cruise in late September, so I feel that I need to have them as we get closer.
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Here’s a link with an article about how to get the 3rd round of free tests.
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Can also get free tests if you have Medicare.
I have five boxes…with expiration dates in July. I think all are good until September. I don’t want to order more that are just going to expire. So…I’m going to wait.
The advantage of getting the tests at the pharmacy or local venue is you can ask expiration date(s) before accepting the test box(es). I like having my expiration dates as far our as possible. I know we will be having an event next month and attend a wedding in November.
The tests I bought in Feb at Walgreens have 12/2022 expiration dates. Those I was mailed from .gov all had sooner expiration dates. We use tests by expiration date—soonest to expire used 1st. We still have all the 8 tests we bought at Walgreens as they have longest expiration date.
My BIL is flying in from SF and staying with us next month so he will need to test a few times.
@BunsenBurner posted this about three weeks ago - the expiration dates on the government provided iHealth test kits have already been extended and will likely be extended again. Legally they couldn’t put a date past what originally known.
You can check your tests here:
What in particular in the at-home COVID-19 tests degrades over time so that the tests require expiration dates?
Quick googling indicates it has to do with the stability of the reagents in the tests. The manufacturers likely believed the tests would be viable for a much longer period than they were legally allowed to put on the boxes based on existing data. So now they’re letting people know of the extensions as they continue to track the stability of the chemicals.
I’m thinking the solution the swab is swirled in degrades. I read an article last week about expiration dates (I’ll see if I can find it ) and the gist was the test components were quality tested to determine their optimum longevity so expiration dates should be adhered to for accurate results.
That being said the FDA did extend the expiration dates on certain test. There’s a link in this article where you can check for your test brand.
ETA: article on expiration dates. One persons opinion