Antiviral drugs, now abundantly available, remain underused
A steady increase in the amount of virus detected in wastewater, combined with more than two weeks of evidence that the pandemic is once again growing, suggest that the coronavirus has remained active in the community this spring even as the impact on hospitals so far remains low.
The rise has been borne out in daily new-case totals which, starting this week, the county is only publishing on Mondays and Thursdays. “In that sense, an increase in reported cases is a big red flag because, even if true case numbers were stable, we might expect to see county numbers decline as a greater fraction of people test at home through antigen testing and don’t report their infections,” Martin said in an email.
Researchers found that 225 people in the study tested positive and discovered that the sensitivity of antigen tests peaked four days after symptoms appeared. Antigen tests taken on the same day that symptoms appeared spotted an infection in only about 20 percent of subjects, compared to more than 80 percent for those who instead used lab tests, which use a different technology called polymerase chain reaction.
“If you know you were exposed and you have symptoms, you really should seek PCR testing if your home test is negative,” Genovese said.