Wondering How Self-Swab COVID-19 Tests Work? We Found Out.

The CVS drive-through line isn’t just for picking up prescriptions anymore, it’s also a one-stop shop for COVID-19 testing. And the person who is collecting the sample to be tested, isn’t a health care worker—it’s you. If you’ve wondered what the self-swab process is like, WFAE’s Sarah Delia has this hands-on account.

Read the full article here: https://www.wfae.org/post/wondering-how-self-swab-covid-19-tests-work-we-found-out#stream/0

“Why shouldn’t self-swabbing work if the disease is naturally transmitted when people are not social distancing and they’re just breathing on each other?” says Daniel Janies, a Bioinformatics and Genomics professor at UNC Charlotte. He’s following studies like the one out of Stanford that are verifying the validity of self-swab tests. “It doesn’t have to be a highly droplet filled cough,” Janies points out. “Apparently there are cases where choirs got together and sang and the mist carrying the microdroplets of virus was enough in the air and they are inhaling and exhaling with their song, that’s enough, so why shouldn’t self-swabbing work?” The more data available on how the disease is spreading in the community, the better, he says. So he’s all for people swabbing themselves.

“We’re not endangering health care workers by having them interact with us. And it lowers the barriers of people to people getting tested so I think the benefits are tremendous,” Janies said. The one tip he has is to go to the drive-through by yourself, if at all possible. Self-swab kits come with detailed instructions. “I would make sure I’m not in the car with anyone else. Just sort of keep the contamination down, the chain of evidence so to speak, keeping that solid,” he recommended.