With Omicron, while the rapid tests are biochemically reliable -- if you get a sample with omicron in it into the test, it will work -- in practice they're not reliable because Omicron isn't necessarily sufficiently in the upper respiratory system to be detected. (There's a gastrointestinal version that's fairly common and which can evade rapid testing through the whole course of the disease.)
Someone who is infected is about 80% likely to not be infectious after 10 days. 15 days is in the upper nineties. The right tail is long which is why they want people to test out of isolation. Which does take a positive test somewhere in the process, which is vexed.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
I'm so sorry!
With Omicron, while the rapid tests are biochemically reliable -- if you get a sample with omicron in it into the test, it will work -- in practice they're not reliable because Omicron isn't necessarily sufficiently in the upper respiratory system to be detected. (There's a gastrointestinal version that's fairly common and which can evade rapid testing through the whole course of the disease.)
Someone who is infected is about 80% likely to not be infectious after 10 days. 15 days is in the upper nineties. The right tail is long which is why they want people to test out of isolation. Which does take a positive test somewhere in the process, which is vexed.
I hope everything goes just as well as it can.