Anyone looking for rapid test kits might have luck at Walmart. My sister picked one up in the Warrenton, OR, Walmart on Rte. 101 today. She said they’re just sitting on a shelf in the pharmacy aisles. In our state (NY) they’re locked behind the pharmacy counter (if they even have any in stock).
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They also come back in stock regularly at Walmart online, but may require a week to arrive.
We ordered 4 on Walmart online yesterday. Amazon also has them in stock a lot. Picked up some there as well (I’ve given most of my stock to symptomatic friends over the past couple of weeks)
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Thanks to posters on these threads, I had been checking WM at odd times, grabbed two tests for each adult kid, picked up the next morning.
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a young 27 yo with existing conditions is in the hospital here. My friend who knows this person said they dont have the Sotrovimab to treat. They got sick and in the hospital in one day. Triple vaxxed.
What state and what preexisting condition? (Asking as the parent of a young person with a couple of medical conditions)
I was not told. State is GA
I ordered 3 boxes of tests from Walmart last week, decided not to pick up in store but wait three days for FedEx. Five hours later, they delivered it to my house instead, from the local Walmart Neighborhood grocery store. The driver seemed to be one of their regular grocery delivery folks? No extra charge
All unexpected and shockingly efficient.
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This WSJ article summarizes the findings of a few recent preliminary studies on different COVID tests in detecting the Omicron variant:
A quick summary for those who can’t access the article:
- By the time an antigen test turns positive, the person has likely already been infectious.
- Antigen tests need to be repeated on multiple consecutive days to rule out an infection if the initial test(s) are negative.
- A saliva-based PCR test may detect an infection sooner than a nasal-swab PCR test.
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This is a very anecdotal, n=1 scenario, but on the day our son developed his first, very mild symptoms, he tested negative. He exposed 7 people that day. He tested positive the next day and isolated. He didn’t infect anyone.
I think we’ll learn more of the story, most likely that the viral loads, symptoms, and test status differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, where unvaccinated develop higher viral loads before becoming symptomatic and are thus more infectious. All conjecture of course.
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I don’t know what to think about rapid tests. DH tested positive on day one of mild symptoms. He never got sicker than a mild cold. I have been very sick and tested negative 3 times using a rapid test. Due to DH’s results, I stayed isolated despite the negative test results. PCR came back positive. To make things even more confusing, my D tested positive on the rapid but negative on a PCR.
Even among the vaccinated and boosted with nearly identical interaction with an infected, the results can be different. I have a friend whose family of four are all vaccinated and boosted. One of their kids was infected first on their recent family trip. Then one of the parents was also infected (probably by that kid), but the other kid and the other parent never were. They were tested everyday (antigen tests) and the two kids stayed in the same room and their parents stayed in the other room.
If rapid antigen tests cannot fully detect the contagious period, then testing may not be effective at detecting contagiousness and warning contagious people to avoid exposing others.
Obviously, PCR tests are not effective either, due to the typical delay in getting results (and such delays are increasing due to the backlog).
My husband said his PCP just mentioned this, but I don’t have a link to any research
You have to Google “ Sildenafil and Covid and PDF” to get to a bunch of links to research papers.
I don’t either, I was shocked and amused when I read the story. Horse de wormers, ED pills, what’s next. Without research data, I’m just going to assume just another wish. Did your husband’s PCP have any data or studies?
Without having to read research papers(which I wouldn’t understand), is their validity of this?
(Saw this on a physician friend’s social media)
(tl;dr: Covid infection might unmask or trigger pediatric diabetes)
A selective PDE5 inhibitor that has been used in treatment of PAH (see:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa050010 )
- seems logical.
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