Thread by @BillHanage

Some of the replies to this have made it clear people still think Covid tests are all painful, and would avoid them. That's *not true*. This👇🏽is a swab for a Covid test, and a PCR test at that. And that's as far as it got into my nose 1/n

https://twitter.com/BillHanage/status/1326936099000885251

We've come a long way since the early days of the pandemic. Then, concerns about sensitivity meant that tests were done on nasopharyngeal swabs, because we were not confident that a nasal swab like this would be accurate enough 2/n

The nasopharynx is right at the back of the nasal cavity, a swab like this is the sort of thing you'd remember. And if you don't know much about test sensitivity it is the starting point. As time goes on, we can ask whether you lose sensitivity with other sampling methods 3/n

This shows that swabs from the outer bit of the nostril (like the one I had) or mid-turbinate (a bit further in) are very nearly as sensitive as an NP swab (>90%). And substantially more comfortable 4/n nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

It's not just that they're more comfortable. Patients can administer them themselves, and they're less likely to sneeze while being swabbed, which protects the people doing the swabbing and means we don't burn through PPE so quickly 5/n

But the upshot is that people should feel comfortable getting tested if they are concerned they've been exposed, or they might be infected. Testing is great. It's the flashlight that shows us where the enemy is 6/n

of course we do need results in good time to make use of them, and PCR is slower than antigen testing (paging @michaelmina_lab). That said, you should feel comfortable getting tested. We're past Halloween and there's no call for horror stories about swabs 7/end