Swab , vortex , drop – then pray there ’s only one line of merchandise . well-nigh four recollective year after COVID-19 wasofficially declare a pandemic , many of us are conversant with the modus operandi of sidelong flow tests ( LFTs ) for the virus . But that prison term has also see raw edition crop up up , let in JN.1 , which is now themost prevalentin the US and worldwide . make out whether or not you have the virus can still descend in pretty handy , which begs the question : are live LFTs still able to pick such novel variant up ?
How lateral flow tests work
Short answer – yes . The longer answer involves which part of the virus is really being detected by theLFTand how SARS - CoV-2 mutates .
With environmental pressures , the virus that causes COVID-19 is constantly mutating over time for continue thriving in the population . Many variants of the computer virus have emerged from chromosomal mutation in thespike protein , the part of a computer virus that mediates its entry into boniface mobile phone , where it then begins to double .
But it ’s not the spike protein that the huge bulk of LFTs are looking for ; it ’s another type of morphological protein called a nucleocapsid , or N - protein , which make up the protective capsule that surrounds the viral genome . N - proteins do n’t tend to mutate as much as spike protein do , meaning that mental test should still be able to plunk them up .
“ There ’s always this fear that we ’re going to have some variation that ’s now become to make the trial not work out , but so far that ’s not really the case , ” say Dr Susan Butler - Wu , a clinical pathologist at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California , speak toNBC News .
Why might a test be negative?
Though that may well change in the futurity , in the meantime , there are a telephone number of reasons why a test might not work even if someone does haveCOVID-19 . One of them is testing before the virus has replicated enough to be observe .
“ If you look at viral kinetics … on medium , it usually take three , four or five days for the computer virus to go from being very low levels to getting gamy enough for any run to pluck up , ” immunologist and epidemiologist Dr Michael Mina explicate toCNN , adding that this has n’t changed much with newer variants .
TheCDCcurrently recommends that if you ’ve been let out to COVID-19 , but do n’t have any symptoms , to wait for at least five full 24-hour interval after photograph before take a test . If you have symptom , it ’s suggested to take a test immediately . In both circumstances , if that trial comes back damaging , it ’s advised to take another LFT after 48 hours , or get a PCR test .
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