One week, 11 rapid antigen tests, 3 PCRs, and $125 later, their household was knee-deep in a baffling array of clashing results: Alden tested negative, then positive, then negative again, then positive again, then negative again her father tested negative, then positive, then positive, then negative Shacochis Edwards, who tested three times, and her son, who tested twice, stayed negative throughout. Shacochis Edwards rapid-tested her family of four at home, while the high school ran a laboratory PCR on Alden. Cole Shacochis Edwards, a nurse in Maryland, discovered at the end of August that her daughter, Alden, had been exposed to the virus while masked at volleyball practice. For many Americans, testing remains inaccessible, unaffordable, and still-still!-ridiculously confusing.Ĭontradictory results, for instance, are an all-too-common conundrum. Not for this virus, and “not for any disease that I know of.” And almost two years into this pandemic, imperfection isn’t the only testing problem we have. Coffey, an infectious-disease physician and diagnostics expert at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told me. Unfortunately, that is not the reality we live in-nor will it ever be. And that status would hold true until each person had the chance to test again. Tests would guarantee whether someone is contagious, or merely infected, or neither. Positives would immediately shuttle people out of public spaces and, if needed, into treatment negatives could green-light entry into every store, school, and office, and spring people out of isolation with no second thought.
The products would be free, fast, and completely reliable. In a world with perfect coronavirus tests, people could swab their nose or spit in a tube and get near-instant answers about their SARS-CoV-2 status.