[blueash]

The home covid antigen tests have an extremely low rate of false positives. Those who claim otherwise are not telling you the truth. An improperly obtained sample will not give a false positive, but it may give a false negative. A study of nearly one million rapid antigen tests done on symptom free people in Canada where all positive tests on the rapid were then tested with PCR found that the false positive rate was 0.05% of all tests done.
That for the math challenged is 50 out of 1 million tests. [edit, math error, it is 500]

So the person who wrote
"Watch the case number grow 1000% in the next 2 weeks.......all the false positives.."

is lying about what will happen with home testing even IF the results were being reported. And s/he is wrong about reporting. There is no, zero, zilch, nada obligation for the reporting of these at home Covid tests.

Local or state health departments may be able to accept your report. AFAIK there is no Federal agency that will accept reports from consumer use. We can guess what the state of Florida will do about wanting to know the number of positive cases.

So the truth is

1, The at home test if positive is overwhelmingly a true positive not a false positive especially during a period of high rates of disease
2. Because patients can now test at home, the real number of cases being reported is much more likely to be falsely lowered. Those who would have been tested in labs and thus obligated to be reported will NOT have their data collected.
3. There is no required reporting of positive, or negative at home tests. Some states or counties may actively encourage voluntary reporting, some will keep their heads in the sand and not encourage reporting.
4. If your at home test is negative that is nice but not strong proof. The rate of false negative especially from poor test technique with nasal swabbing is considerable. A negative result is probably more accurate when you are symptomatic rather than just as a screening test.


If you believe you have Covid and knowing your status is important because you would want monoclonal treatment or you have exposed a high risk person, the PCR test which is not rapid is a better test for determining you are really negative. Nonetheless the screening test is a good test.


As to this comment
"Exactly, I have zero confidence they will be accurate, just another waste of taxpayer money."

Your confidence would add nothing to the situation. The test is the test. Its accuracy, both false positives and negatives is established. Whether you care to believe in science over your gut feelings does not change reality.