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How Long After Exposure To Covid-19 Coronavirus Should You Get Tested?

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This article is more than 3 years old.

So you think that you’ve been exposed to the Covid-19 coronavirus. Maybe that person belting out Sia’s “Chandelier” next to you turned out to be infected. Perhaps forming that human pyramid while drinking wasn’t the best idea. What do you do now?

Well, the first thing to do is to make like a tree and quarantine yourself. Do this without delay. Since you can begin having symptoms as soon as two days after exposure to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), you could start shedding the virus even sooner. In this case, shedding doesn’t mean putting viruses in the tool shed, but instead it means releasing the virus from your cells. When you shed the virus, you may be contagious and can pass the virus to others. Don’t be one of those people who infects others while talking about how you are going to quarantine yourself.

Quarantine should last at least 14 days after presumed exposure. That’s because two weeks is how long your infection may go on quietly before symptoms emerge. Keep in mind that symptoms of Covid-19 can be unusual. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website currently lists the following possible symptoms:

  • Fever or chills
  • Cough
  • Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
  • Fatigue
  • Muscle or body aches
  • Headache
  • New loss of taste or smell
  • Sore throat
  • Congestion or runny nose
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Diarrhea

However, they do add the kicker that “this list does not include all possible symptoms.” Plus, you may not develop any symptoms while infected. So you can’t really rule out a Covid-19 coronavirus infection based on symptoms alone.

So what do you do about getting tested? In this case, we are talking about a diagnostic test, one that can show if you currently are infected with the virus, as this video from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shows:

As the video describes, diagnostic testing involves getting samples from your nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal areas. Your pharynx is the passageway that connects your nasal passages with your oral passages. So make sure you know what to expect and are getting the right type of test:

It’s a good idea to get diagnostic testing if you may have been exposed to the virus. There may be some confusion over this since CDC guidance on testing after possible exposure flipped one direction for about a 25-day period and then flipped back. For a while, the CDC website indicated that you should get tested if you think you were exposed to the virus. That was consistent with what most public health and medical experts in U.S. were saying, that not enough testing was being done, that more testing was needed.

Then, near the end of August, as I described for Forbes back on August 26, the CDC made changes on its “Overview of Testing for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) website” that elicited from scientific experts a collective “huh?” Included in these new recommendations was the statement that you didn’t necessarily need testing if you’ve been “in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a Covid-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms,” or if you were “in a high Covid-19 transmission area and have attended a public or private gathering of more than 10 people (without widespread mask wearing or physical distancing),” you also didn’t necessarily need testing.

To many in public health, these new recommendations made less sense than the song "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" While the recommendations didn’t include the phrase ”gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding,” they didn’t seem to address the common possibility that people without symptoms could be infected and contagious.

Then, news broke that members of President Donald Trump’s administration had been altering CDC scientific reports (as I covered for Forbes ) and doing stuff like this:

Interestingly, as of September 18, the CDC web site recommendations were back to:

  • “If you have been in close contact, such as within 6 feet of a person with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection for at least 15 minutes and do not have symptoms,” the website now says, “You need a test.”
  • “If you do not have COVID-19 symptoms and have not been in close contact with someone known to have SARS-CoV-2 infection (meaning being within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes),” the website says, “You do not need a test unless recommended or required by your healthcare provider or public health official.”
  • “If you are in a high SARS-CoV-2 transmission zone and attended a public or private gathering of more than 10 people (without universal mask wearing and/or physical distancing),” the website now says, “Your healthcare provider or public health official may advise a SARS-CoV-2 test.”

Why have the late August changes have gone, in the words of *NSYNC, bye-bye-bye from the CDC web site? Well, the website now bears the following somewhat cryptic explanation: “Clarifications made on September 18, 2020: Due to the significance of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, this guidance further reinforces the need to test asymptomatic persons, including close contacts of a person with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection.” OK, but “asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission” have been concerns since March, as I wrote back then for Forbes. Wouldn’t the September 18 statement then be like saying “due to the significance of cheese, this mac-and-cheese dish includes cheese,” after for some reason you went through a 25-day period of trying to replace the cheese with confetti?

Regardless of what actually happened before and during that 25-day period, the recommendations from public health experts about testing after possible exposure to the Covid-19 coronavirus have not changed. Try to get tested. Of course, you could get tested every single day after possible exposure until 14 days have passed. But potentially that’s a lot of cotton swabs way up your nose in a short period of time. Plus you may not be somewhere like the White House and have the resources and access to get tested so frequently.

A more realistic possibility for many might be getting tested once or twice after exposure. If this is the case, try to space the testing out appropriately. Since people on average develop symptoms five to six days after exposure, you may still test negative a day or two after exposure. Therefore, you may want to wait until at least five days after exposure before getting tested.

Even if you do test negative, continue to quarantine the full 14 days. A negative test doesn’t mean that you are in clear. You could always start shedding the virus anytime after the test has been performed.

There’s really no reason not to get tested if you think that you’ve been exposed to the Covid-19 coronavirus. Determining whether you are infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus isn’t like determining whether you are in love, unless of course you typically stick cotton swabs up your nose to determine if you are in love. No survey, app, potion, or feeling is going to exclude the possibility of you being contagious.

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