Because getting a COVID test is required in order to do things like fly on an airplane and get into sports games, people need to be informed about how and where to get tested. In order to learn more about the subject of COVID tests, I got in contact with a fellow Lakeridge student, Nick Sander. He had gotten tested for COVID during the summer. 

One day, Sander had woken up feeling ill and decided he needed to get a COVID test. He went to what used to be a Nicoli’s, which is now a COVID testing site. To find out where the nearest testing site is, you can visit COVID Testing & Rapid Testing Near Me in Tigard, OR – Same Day Results (solvhealth.com).

When Sander got to the testing site, he had to wait for about five minutes. After about five minutes, he was taken to a room where there was a doctor wearing an n95 mask, scrubs, and gloves. The doctor took a cue tip and swabbed both of his nostrils for about 15 seconds. Sander said, “it was a weird sensation and it made my eyes water.”

There are three main types of COVID tests, PCR, rapid, and antibody tests. Sander got the PCR test, which is the most common type. The results took about 24 hours to get back to him, whereas a rapid test would have taken about ten minutes. According to studies done by Healthline, PCR tests are accurate 97% of the time, whereas rapid tests are only accurate 72 percent of the time. This is why you would want to get a PCR test instead of a rapid test.

24 hours after receiving the test, Sander got the results back. He had COVID-19.

“It didn’t exactly surprise me, I had a feeling I might have had COVID,” Sander said. Besides the results telling Sander that he had COVID, it also let him know that he had to quarantine for two weeks and notify anyone he was in contact with recently that he had gotten COVID-19 and that they should get tested for COVID.