{"id":1767,"date":"2022-01-18T09:04:20","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T14:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2022-01-18T09:04:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T14:04:20","slug":"what-is-current-best-practice-for-testing-nasal-and-or-throat-swabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1767","title":{"rendered":"What is current best practice for testing: nasal and\/or throat swabs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0One thing that has become evident is that for omicron, it is best to swab the throat than the nose for home and other rapid and PCR tests.\u00a0 Is that the current practice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0The current practice in the US is to follow the testing instructions (i.e., take\/use the nasal swab).\u00a0 As the\u00a0FDA tweeted<\/a>\u00a0on January 7th, “FACT: When it comes to at-home rapid antigen #COVID19 tests, those swabs are for your nose and not your throat (1\/3), The home antigen tests available today are only authorized using nasal swabs. We don\u2019t have any data yet suggesting throat swabs are an accurate or appropriate method for at-home tests. (2\/3) Use your at-home #COVID19 test exactly as directed to avoid invalid results or injuries. (3\/3) “(Figure<\/strong>)\u00a0 And as\u00a0Dr. Fauci elaborated<\/a>\u00a0in last week’s Senate hearing, \u201cThere have been recent reports that, in fact, [there may be higher] sensitivity and ability to detect [the virus] in a swab of the throat versus the nasopharynx, at least with omicron. I think it needs to be validated and verified.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this confusion has arisen because: 1) We know that the\u00a0sensitivity of antigen tests has likely declined<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0omicron<\/a>\u00a0(reminder: home-based tests are usually antigen tests; sensitivity is the ability of the test to detect everyone truly infected); 2)\u00a0Initial data from South Africa\u00a0<\/a>indicate that when using PCR tests, saliva swabs are more accurate than nasal swabs at detecting omicron (reminder: PCR are lab-based tests); and 3)\u00a0Israel recently instructed<\/a>\u00a0its citizens to swab both the throat and nose and the\u00a0UK issued an instructional video<\/a>\u00a0way back in July 2020 on how to take a throat and nasal swab.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s exceptionally hard for science to keep pace with the quickly changing dynamics of the pandemic.\u00a0 It’s very possible that the guidelines change in the future and we move from nasal to throat swabs.\u00a0 In the meantime, with limited data, no news from test manufacturers, and at-home tests designed for nasal swabbing, I’d recommend sticking with current practice.\u00a0 You might be wondering what the harm would be in taking both throat and nose swabs; I’d say that it’s the possibility of invalid results.\u00a0 There’s also the possibility of injury, but that seems avoidable with a bit of caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure. FDA Reminds the Public to Use Nasal Swabs as Instructed\u00a0<\/strong>(from\u00a0FDA<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question:\u00a0One thing that has become evident is that for omicron, it is best to swab the throat than the nose for home and other rapid and PCR tests.\u00a0 Is that the current practice? Answer:\u00a0The current practice in the US is to follow the testing instructions (i.e., take\/use the nasal swab).\u00a0 As the\u00a0FDA tweeted\u00a0on January 7th, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,6],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guidelines","category-testing","tag-sensitivity","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1769,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions\/1769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}