Rapid covid tests can work--if you avoid making the White House's mistakes

And yet rapid tests like the Abbott test have led to reports among the general population of false negatives (reports that you don't have the virus when you really do). That means some people may have been unknowingly spreading the virus to others. The White House outbreak is a very good illustration of the limitations of rapid testing. But it should not deter us from the strategy entirely--we just need to use the technology properly. No test is 100% accurate, but the gold standard for diagnosing covid-19 is a PCR test.