654584 external_news 1642615173 1642623623 Rapid tests are a quick and easy way to find out if you’ve contracted Covid-19, but some tests may not detect variants of the virus. “The chances are a little bit more that those kinds of tests will not detect the new variant,” says M.G. Finn, Professor and Chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and James A. Carlos Family Chair for Pediatric Technology. Rapid tests, also known as antigen tests, seek and grab ahold of specific proteins around the outside shell of the virus. Variants can alter those proteins, Finn says. If it changes the specific protein the test was designed for, you can get false negatives.

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