WHERE TO TEST
Tests can be done in a hospital, a clinic, a community testing site or through a home kit authorized by the FDA this week. There is no test that can be done completely at home to date. However, on Monday, the FDA authorized the first COVID-19 test for home collection of specimens to be sent to a laboratory for processing and test reporting. This authorization is only to the home collection test that has been issued the Emergency Use Authorization for Labcorp’s COVID-19 RT-PCR Test. If you think you have symptoms, you must contact your health care provider or physician first.
• Hospitals focus on significantly ill patients and health care workers. It is important to keep hospitals and emergency departments as free as possible to treat critically ill people.
• Clinics focus on people with other medical problems, and it is important to avoid infecting people with other conditions.
• Community testing sites can provide professionally managed testing for mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic people. There are several drive-up sites in California, but these are by appointment only.
• Home testing is being developed but not widely used to date.
Type of test: Nasopharyngeal swabs, which are placed in the back of the person’s nasal cavity, have been the most widely recommended because they test a location that is known to have large quantities of the SARS-COV-2 virus. If the swab doesn’t reach the back of the nasal cavity, the virus may not be detected, even if the person is symptomatic and infected.