Ideally, you should be able to get tested whenever you want or for whatever reasons. However, the availability of Covid-19 testing in the United States is not the same everywhere.
In some places, you need a doctor’s prescription to get yourself tested. In other areas, you can just walk out to a clinic and test yourself. You can also use a rapid testing kit at home to conduct the testing yourself.
If you are wondering ‘where to get tested for coronavirus near me‘, you must know first when you should test yourself.
Primarily, there are four reasons to get yourself tested.
Reason-1: Symptoms
The most urgent cause for getting checked is feeling ill. Any of the typical symptoms of Covid-19 are dry cough, weakness, headache, fever, or lack of sense of smell.
Remain isolated from others while you’re waiting for the results and warn the individuals you’ve spent time with over the past few days, so they can take precautions. During the first week, when you have symptoms, tests are more accurate.
Reason-2: Exposure
Do you think you have spent time with an infected patient recently? Were you in an indoor party, at an airport, or on an airplane with him/her? You need to quarantine yourself and get checked. If testing is not readily available, your only option is to take a rest.
It takes five to six days after a suspected infection to allow the virus the chance to build up in the body to measurable levels. So, do not test too early. You can get a false negative report.
If you’re in a city area where it is considerably easy to get a result, get tested a couple of days after your exposure and get tested again in three to four days if it’s negative.
Reason-3: Precautions
As a precaution, certain people may get tested. Before any invasive medical operations or surgery, hospitals can request you to be screened. A rapid screening can be offered to visitors to nursing homes before they are allowed to enter.
Before leaving campus and when they arrive, several colleges and boarding schools often test students and recommend testing. It is a smart thing to be checked before you go, and a few days after you return, if you have to travel.
A negative test result is certainly not a free pass to mingle with anyone. Still, the risk that you unknowingly spread the virus will be minimized by understanding your infection status. You will need to wear a mask, keep a distance from others, and take other precautions, even though the Covid-19 test outcome is negative.
Reason-4: Community Testing
Local health authorities will, in some cases, promote widespread testing for everyone, delivering tests at health centers, pharmacies, and research drive-through locations. Testing multiple individuals helps to measure the extent of spread in an area.
One of the ways to successfully control this virus is by ensuring that at a given time as many patients as possible are screened, so we can pick up people who are infected who do not yet realize that they have the infection.
