Can at-home COVID tests detect the omicron variant?

This image provided by Lucira Health shows the Lucira COVID-19 all-in-one home test kit. The FDA granted emergency authorization on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, to the single-use test kit from Lucira Health, a California manufacturer. The test can performed entirely at home and delivers results in 30 minutes. (Lucira Health via AP)

With lines wrapping around many testing sites due to another surge in COVID-19 cases, many Americans are turning to at-home tests to avoid those lines. While these at-home tests proved effective in detecting previous variants of COVID-19 but WINK News wants to know if it will detect omicron as well.

The rise of the omicron variant has many wondering if those rapid, at-home antigen tests will still be accurate.

Researchers have found that many treatments, including mRNA vaccines, target COVID-19’s protein spike. Now that the protein spike has heavily mutated, that’s where questions arise about the tests still working.

According to several manufacturers of those at-home test kits, they are still accurate. Abbott Labs, the maker of the ever-popular BinaxNOW test, issued a statement saying in part that both the rapid and PCR tests are equipped to detect the omicron variant.

Abbott says its tests do not rely on the spike gene to locate the virus.

The United Kingdom conducted a study comparing five popular at-home COVID-19 tests there and found no false negatives.

So far, what this means, is that your FDA-approved at-home COVID-19 test should be reliable.

However, some caveats do still exist. The first is that the test must be administered properly. Secondly, because the omicron variant replicates so quickly, someone could test negative early in the day and test positive later that same day.