Urgent hospital admission, asymptomatic/symptom status unknown
Current practices
When patients need critical care, point-of-care NAATs will provide swift
and accurate results (FigureĀ 1). These patients are not being admitted
due to symptoms of COVID-19 and, as such, repeat testing following a
negative NAAT test would not be required, unless indicators arise to
suggest a patient does have respiratory symptoms.
Key considerations
If results can be obtained more quickly using an antigen test in this
clinical setting, then an antigen test in the interim is also
acceptable; however, the result should be confirmed with a NAAT, which
might be performed on site in a centralized
laboratory.66 In patients with respiratory symptoms in
the ED setting, antigen testing has still been shown to produce
false-negative results.66 Depending on the clinical
setting and the care that the patient requires, other assessments for
the presenting condition may also reveal the likelihood of a respiratory
infection but are not diagnostic for COVID-19.73