The testing centers will have to weigh the significant profit of procuring results in 15 min utilizing a quick isothermal test and awaring positive individuals about instant isolation against the potential for false negatives, which may send positive subjects to home believing they don't have COVID-19 and therefore substantially spread the infection.

A backup test with a prompt PCR or laboratory-based test should be used  if a physician obtains  negative result with isothermal test, but is highly suspicious that the individual has COVID or resides in the area with greater prevalence of infection. A certain proportion of subjects utilizing this isothermal test may be missed. If isothermal test is the only available choice, it should be utilized because it is certainly better compared to not testing at all.

All the test varieties have higher specificity, several false-positive results might not be seen.

Due to paucity of data in the literature, the previous guidelines didn't make any recommendations on rapid tests. The major available data were for symptomatic individuals. However few data  demonstrate that amount of virus in respiratory tract is comparable for individuals with and without symptoms. The panel, thus, anticipates that performance of various assays would be comparable whether or not an individual had symptoms.

Previous guidelines advocated molecular testing for asymptomatic individuals who were waiting for a transplant or were waiting to initiate immunosuppressives for cancer or an autoimmune disorder. In these cases, the IDSA guidelines does not advocate for or against screening the immunocompromised individuals. 

Due to the raised risks that will result if individuals have contracted the virus, individuals waiting for bone marrow and solid organ transplants should undergo testing. For patients suffering from an autoimmune disease or cancer, the guidelines advocate to leave it up to each clinician to determine the individual risk and assess whether testing of the patient should be done.

The home testing was not weighed in by IDSA guidelines. This is because the products are so novel and studies so far have incorporated less than 200 participants. In early phase of the disease (the initial 5-7 days) when the virus amount is elevated, they certainly perform better. 

Majority of tests are EUA-authorized. Moreover, it doesn't look like this novel variant should really impact the test performance. The current tests would not be impacted because the variant has considerable differences in spike gene, and the various current tests recognize the virus without the spike gene.