(WSIL) -- President Joe Biden announced the purchase of a half-billion, at-home rapid COVID-19 tests. This comes after struggles with overwhelmed hospitals and shortages.
But what should you know if you've never used one before?
Those shortages are affecting local pharmacies too. News 3 spoke with one pharmacist from Mt. Vernon to help explain concerns about using those kits.
Pharmacist Kim Wieter from Byrd-Watson pharmacy originally predicted more purchases of at home Covid test kits after the new year, but says demand has already increased.
She says there are a few things to consider before testing yourself.
"The main thing that people need to remember is the timing on it. So a false negative. It depends on if you're testing to--because you're symptomatic or if you're testing because of potential exposure. If you're symptomatic and you test and you get a negative, you definitely want to repeat in a couple days to make sure. If you test too early, you can get those false negatives. False positives are less likely," she said.Â
Wieter says the shortage affected this week's order of test kits and couldn't demonstrate with one for News 3, but explained that using them is pretty simple.
"Pretty easy to use. You're basically going to do a nasal swab and then it comes with a test tube of solution. You're putting that nasal swab in the solution. I think you put that in for like a minute or so and pull that out. They're usually all the same and put a little test strip in there and that's going to give you a positive--like pink line or something will be a positive with a controlled line to make sure that you're reading it correctly," she said.Â
And She says even if you use a test kit, it's still important to get your vaccine.
"With the test kits, its basically just a tool. Like obviously, we want people to get vaccinated. That's going to be key to keeping the virus from spreading," she said.
And President Biden says Americans won't be able to order kits online until January.
