Jonesboro pharmacy responds to White House Task Force suggestion on “rapid test and isolate”

JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) - The White House Coronavirus Task Force says Craighead and five other counties remain in the red zone for COVID-19 cases.

The task force asked local health officials to have resources set up to help positive individuals who may not be able to isolate within their household, even recommended Arkansas to implement a “different strategy” for reducing transmission saying what worked in the summer is not working in the fall.

The White House recommended implementing a different “strategy”, with one of the suggestions being a “rapid test and isolate” campaign.

The task force said that could be a community approach with every resident doing their part to stop the spread.

Woodsprings Pharmacy does rapid testing in Jonesboro and Pharmacist Dylan Dulaney says it’s very important for us to be rapid testing, so we can find those positives.

“They said rapid test and isolate, that’s what its real function is… to be able to find those positives quickly and effectively and isolate them as fast as possible. Whereas with the PCR send-off, it takes a while to get back there for you are exposing more and more people so, it’s just another tool in the toolbox. I think they’re both very useful if they are applied correctly," Dulaney said.

He did say for those questioning the accuracy of an Antigen test, you should not be concerned.

“A true positive rate on these test are 96.7 percent, so they are super accurate especially at detecting positives. Now, while a negative has to be evaluated in a time frame of testing. So, it’s recommended to get tested within the first five days of symptom onset,” Dulaney said.

He says the time frame is very important with Antigen. He added that in his professional opinion, he has “found that at the end of day two to day four it’s kinda a sweet spot for antigen testing. You can test too early where your levels are not high enough to detect and where you could get a false negative.”

But that’s why he recommends a follow-up PCR test to confirm, especially if someone has COVID-like symptoms.

In all, he says we have to work as a team and find these positive cases quickly and make sure people are staying isolated.

Copyright 2020 KAIT. All rights reserved.