With popping up, experts are concerned about a possible COVID-19 spike this summer. So take a moment to make sure you how and when to use at-home COVID tests — just in case your " " turn into something more serious. As always, your COVID test results — whether — are only helpful if you know how to interpret them.
While most people will clear the virus and get a negative antigen test result within 10 days, some people may keep testing positive for longer than that, experts tell TODAY.com. And if you keep testing positive for 10 days or more, the safest approach may not be obvious.
Deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are on the decline after a winter surge. But a group of new strains — referred to as the — have begun to spread and now account for about half of all cases in the U.S.
, according to the most recent data from the . It took just a few weeks for the new strains to overtake JN.1 strain, which was responsible for this past winter's major surge.
Knowing that COVID-19 is still out there — and continuing to evolve, it's important to resist "COVID fatigue" and to "still not become complacent," Dr. Diana Cardona, a member of the College of American Pathologists Board of Governors, tells TODAY.com.
"The worst thing for us to do as a society is forget about it," says Cardona, who is also the vice chair and director at Duke Health Anatomic Pathology Laboratories. The virus poses particularly serious risks for certain populations, including immunocompromised .
