While COVID-19 continues to evolve, there’s some excellent news on the subject of detecting the virus.
"The tests we’ve used over the last three or four years don’t seem to be significantly impacted by the new variants," says Dr. Matthew Binnicker, director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic.
He says that the molecular, or PCR, exams processed in laboratories have a look at a number of components of the genetic make-up of the virus, so even when there are mutations in a single space, a take a look at can nonetheless decide up the virus. "And the home antigen tests look for a different protein altogether from where we’re seeing these mutations in the recent variants," says Dr. Binnicker.
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