We use them at the hospital I work at, and they are far less accurate than the other tests. 15-20% false negative, but we see more than that. It's pretty appalling that at this stage of the virus there isn't a more accurate rapid test available.
not an expert but hey who needs to be these days, but i think the issue is just one of what is being measured and the accuracy and sensitivity of the test. The quick tests measure viral antigen, or a protein unique to the virus using an antibody/elisa type of system, the problem is although they are fast they are prone to errors, particularly the false negative, takes a fair amount of viral antigen for it to be detected and early or late in infections it may not be enough to detect, fast but not accurate. technology been around for awhile, just may be as good as it will get with that technology. The PCR test which detects viral RNA (which i believe is first converted to DNA for the test) is very sensitive and accurate uses highly specific DNA primers which match up only to the viral RNA and can detect very small amounts of virus and are much less prone to errors. There is time required to collect the sample, prep the sample (isolate the viral RNA and convert to DNA) then run the PCR to amplify the viral RNA so it can be detected. I work in a lab where people do this routinely (not for diseases) but you can probably have it done in a day but then you have to include time for collecting the samples, shipping the samples, recording the info, do the sample prep and running the assay, sending out the results and say were are running a million tests a day so there is backlog and it is days to get results. perhaps one day we will get to a really rapid and accurate test but not in the next few months.
I am starting to go with the what the hell let it rip crowd, the US population as a whole doesn't seem to be willing to compromise, i mean you look at Sturgis, a quarter of a million people with few restrictions, and then the BLM protests with large crowds and well maybe we should let it rip. It is odd to me because i am sure both groups will probably say why cant we gather the other group did. an effective vaccine is a ways off, and herd immunity could be a rocky road but the majority of potential deaths associated with covid and reaching herd immunity will be the sick, old and fat and rare healthy person.. as someone on here posted earlier ..too bad grandpa, too bad fatso, too bad fractional outlier,,,,seems brutal and uncaring but it may be what will happen.