Rapid antigen tests are now deemed suitable (if you can find one) for establishing a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

So it’s worth highlighting one of the background debates currently running: whether the tests are as good at picking up the Omicron variant as they are with Delta.

It’s purely anecdotal, but some GPs have flagged concerns with symptomatic patients returning negative results with rapid antigen tests (RATs) only to be identified as positive via the gold-standard PCR test.

And yes, this might simply be that the RATs, like most tests, are imperfect, and their patients have just been unlucky in the statistical lotto.