As you have already heard, COVID-19 symptoms are pretty similar to the symptoms of a wide array of conditions and illnesses. Since this is known for a fact, the only way for a person to know whether he or she is positive on a Coronavirus is to take a test. One of the crucial things for the prevention of further spreading of this dangerous virus is to have mass testing. Furthermore, we can hear talk about massive home tests that are about to be released for sale in drugstores. Anyway, one of the most important questions is how long does Coronavirus test take? Well, stay with us and we are going to provide you with an answer.
What Do You Need to Know about Testing?
Naturally, not all of the people need to be tested. There are several things you need to know about whether you need to take a test yourself.
- A high majority of people only have slight symptoms and can recover at home without going to the hospital.
- WHO doesn’t have any specifically approved treatments for the Coronavirus.
- The results of the tests could be potentially helpful in informing people you have been in contact.
How Can You Get Tested and How Long Does It Take?
If you are suspecting or you already have some of the Coronavirus symptoms, you should contact your local healthcare institution. Even though the numbers of tests are getting higher by the day, it could happen that there isn’t enough for everyone sometimes. The testing can include using a drop of the blood or taking a swab of the throat or nose. There is one more approach when it comes to testing, and that it an antibody test. Usually, testing doesn’t last more than a couple of minutes. After that, the samples are sent to the laboratory. You can click here to learn more about Covid-19 testing.
How Long You Need to Take for the Results?
A vast majority of the laboratories use a PCR method. PCR stands for a polymerase chain reaction. It takes a couple of hours to know what the results are. At the same time, since this is a pretty unpredictable virus, it could last up to a couple of days to get the results finished. At the same time, new methods of testing a coronavirus are developed all over the world. One of them is a LAMP method. This stands for loop-mediated isothermal amplification. With this method, results are available in about 30 minutes. This kind of test could be used in airports and homes in order to determine whether someone is positive or negative about this dangerous virus.
Rapid Tests
Many people have heard about Coronavirus tests that can be done in up to fifteen minutes. These are called rapid tests. One of these is available in the UK. This one focuses on detecting proteins instead of taking a look at genetic sequences. These proteins could be viral ones. They are called antigens or antibodies that are located in our body and can help us with the prevention of the virus. However, these tests are slightly less accurate than common, genetic tests.
