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by pope_meat 1632 days ago
I took 4 at home tests, all said negative, but I was definitely sick, scheduled a PCR test, 6 days after my symptoms started was the soonest I could get an appointment for, and it finally confirmed that I had covid. 2 different brands of at home tests kept telling me I was negative.

So, I don't doubt the anecdotal stories of people getting false negatives with the at home. My coworker also took 4 and only 1 finally showed positive in the end.

1 comments

So four tests say no and one says yes, and you believe the one? Maybe you just had a cold.
If the one is a PCR test, then yes you should trust the PCR.

Dr Michael Osterholm has covered at great length what garbage the rapid antigen tests are.

Different tests have different purposes. PCR tests have fewer false negative results when used to confirm infections in symptomatic patients. However, PCR tests are mostly useless for determining when those patients have cleared the infection and are no longer contagious.