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Fda was saying the tests are no longer good. they say they're less sensitive now. they never were 100% sensitive. some of the tests have a diminution further of the sensitivity, but they still say the tests are useful and should be used. >> okay, a diminution of the sensitivity. does that mean that the at-home rapid tests work to detect omicron or not? >> well, they do and they don't in the sense that if you are symptomatic, most of the antigen tests are pretty good. if you're having covid symptoms, cold, headache, et cetera, the sensitivity for picking that up on an at-home test is about 70%,...

After testing positive for covid-19. there are still 31% of people, roughly, that are still contagious on day five. it goes down to 5% by day ten. point is that this is confusing. um, that is -- there's quite possibly going to be a lot of people -- up to a third of people who are still contagious, and many of them may not test. and to give you a little bit of context, in the uk, for example, they looked at the same data and said people should isolate for at least seven days and have two negative antigen tests before they come out of isolation. we're -- we're far more liberal than that here. >>...

Obviously a lot of focus on inhome tests today, these are antigen tests, there are some interesting research going on about the ability to make pcr tests available at home, and there's companies all over the country, including one in connecticut, that, you know, believe that with some additional investment, to bring those tests to scale, we could get pcr tests into families hands at home, for a cost that is at or below what we're currently charging or companies are currently charging for antigen tests. is that a possibility? >> senator murphy, thank you. we share your interest of course in see...

Originally we hear from the cdc director on the "today" show this morning, she confirmed that this morning saying it's not as effective picking up omicron as it was the delta or alpha variant but saying that the pcr test should be the reliable test for folks to take. that's why we're here at the site where you're seeing lines -- not yet but seeing lines across the city as that testing front continues, not just here in illinois but across the country. >> doctor, lines, lines everywhere but there's also questions about the antigen test and what people are taking and the delays in getting pcr res...

It's transmissible, if you can show that there really is live replication virus in you. and the tests don't measure that. they measure the presence or absence of the virus. and the virus could be dead, inactive virus that doesn't transmit. son' it's entirely understandab why people get confused over that, so that's why i try to explain it to people, to hopefully clarify that. >> yeah, i certainly appreciate that. i'm sure a lot of people do as well. i know this is anecdotal, my whole family recently caught covid, we're all positive on antigen tests. i i'm the only one who took a pcr test.hifa ...