[cameldrv]

No the performance is worse with newer variants. One factor seems to be that newer variants tend to replicate a lot in the throat at first and only later move to the nose, but there is probably more than one reason for the change. In 2021, the antigen tests were pretty sensitive if you were symptomatic, but now the false negative rate is 50% or greater if you're on your first day or two of symptoms. They perform better a few days later.

The problem is that people will have symptoms consistent with covid and they're going to visit grandma or whatever, so rather than just cancel, they take a test, the test is negative, and they go do their thing. IMO going just based on symptoms is more reliable at this point unless you're using a molecular test.