So kiddo was exposed to COVID at #CCCamp23. Her RAT is negative, but, well, that only means she's not definitely positive.
Please remember that, people. That is ALL a RAT can tell you.
If it's positive, statistically, you definitely have COVID.
If it's negative, it doesn't mean *anything*
Please, please. People are getting sick again. Get it right this time.
From what I know, the most important failure mode of rapid tests (and to a lesser extent ~any tests) is that they will yield a very large fraction of false negatives early on. Do you know any estimates of repeated false negative probability over 2-3 tests over 2-3 days (i.e. probability of 2-3 tests being negative over 2-3 days while sick with COVID and symptomatic)?
When I tried to estimate it most recently, I ended up finding things that suggested wildly different rates of singular false negatives across different test manufacturers (by more than 2x IIRC), but sadly couldn't find anything about the repeated testing setup (I baselessly suspected that it would decrease the inter-manufacturer spread).
@robryk I can't give you numbers anymore - I could have two years ago - but the false negative rate for COVID RATs, even after many days, was always high enough to make them be a terrible measure for safety.
(A good friend of mine got COVID in March - he was walking around with an infected crusty eye (conjunctivitis) and fever/cough - so VERY VERY symptomatic - and he didn't test positive until several days later (and that may have been a PCR to be honest, I don't know)
@robryk By then it was way too late - he'd already infected 3 other people.
@robryk It's hard to say anything about later testing, especially with current variants, because I don't know that it's even being measured anymore.
But I do know people who've had positive PCRs and never tested positive on RATs. That's anecdotal of course, but the point is this:
RATs were never intended to let people know they were safely negative. Never.
They were intended to detect as many positive cases as possible to let those people know they were infectious and should stay home.