Should Parents Stock Up on At-Home COVID Tests?

He’s 11-years-old, and until he can receive his shots, Gronvall’s been using at-home COVID-19 test kits in order to determine if his sniffles are more than allergies or a slight cold. The test swabs are longer than a Q-tip, but easier on the nasal cavity than a flu diagnostic or the original “brain swab” used to test for COVID since early in the pandemic.“There’s often a lot of stuff coming out of their nose,” Gronvall said of her kids, with a slight chuckle, when we talked recently.

“The tests are … not as sensitive as PCR-based tests,” wrote Christopher Brooke, a virologist at the University of Illinois, over email. “The sensitivity of antigen tests can be increased through serial testing however. If someone takes two or three tests in the week after an exposure and remains negative, that is more convincing than if that person just takes a single test.”Gronvall agrees. “Tests are a moment in time,” she told me.

I asked Gronvall how she would advise parents to use at-home tests this fall. She suggested using them when concerned that the child is sick, after being potentially exposed to COVID-19, or before seeing an immunocompromised relative—just to be on the safe side.A general good rule of thumb is: If a symptomatic user gets a positive result, believe it. If they get a negative, go get a PCR test.

“It’s vital that [the at-home tests] are used with your eyes wide open to their limitations,” said Chana Davis, a geneticist who founded the website

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