Nevada among last states to add rapid tests to virus tally
CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nevada last week became one of the last states to publicly report rapid antigen tests as part of its coronavirus tallies — a move that experts said could provide a fuller picture of the pandemic but also upend metrics used to gauge how the virus is spreading.
The change leaves Maryland as the lone U.S. state that doesn’t incorporate rapid tests in its online dashboard or include them in virus statistics, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends, according to an Associated Press review of dashboards and policies for all 50 states.
Nevada has been among the states hit hardest by the pandemic. The state’s hospitals have been pushed to near capacity, its unemployment has broken national records, and 435,000 people have tested positive for COVID19. Omitting rapid tests from its tally limited the public’s understanding of the pandemic’s spread in the state, Nevada health officials acknowledge.
Officials told the AP in September 2020 that they were working to publicly report antigen and molecular tests separately on their dashboard. On Monday, they said delays stemmed from the overburdened state public health system having to juggle competing priorities with limited resources.
The rapid antigen tests, which detect the presence of viral proteins rather than the coronavirus itself, return results in minutes, unlike traditional molecular tests sent to labs, which can take days to process but are shown to be more accurate. Their quick turnaround times have led to their widespread use in prisons, schools and nursing homes.
President Joe Biden praised rapid tests last month, but supply shortages and the varied ways that states report them reflect the continued absence of a national testing strategy. Some states report antigen tests separately, with positive results as “probable cases” while others combine them with molecular tests for an overall tally.
On Monday, Nevada added more than 600,000 new tests to the online dashboard that shows coronavirus case and death counts, vaccination rates and positivity rates. The infusion spiked the number of COVID-19 cases reported statewide by 9,700 and decreased the positivity rate by one-sixth, from 10.1% to 8.8%.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas epidemiologist Brian Labus said scientists never assumed testing data provided a complete picture of COVID-19’s trajectory and instead used it to pinpoint trends. It’s easier to gauge when COVID-19 surges and drops if cases are counted the same way, he said, especially regarding statistics used to determine the need for prevention measures like mask mandates.
One criteria that triggers county mask mandates for indoor public spaces is an 8% positivity rate, which the CDC defines as “substantial” transmission.
“Changing now will probably cause some disruption to that system,” Labus said.