West Australians hoping to buy rapid antigen tests from their local pharmacies have been warned they will not be able to, due to a lack of supply.They say they urgently need advice on the use of RATs in WALast week, Western Australia's Chief Health Officer, Andy Robertson, told reporters that rapid antigen tests would become legal from Monday, after the state government removed the ban it earlier imposed on them over accuracy concerns.
"The most frustrating thing, so far, is that while the ban is being lifted, we can source the stock, but we just need the guidelines around its usage and we're waiting on that," he said."What we'd like to be told is how [the tests are] going to be used, when [they are] going to be used, and what the patient should be doing [after] a positive or a negative test.
"In the current environment, where we have little or no community spread, [rapid antigen tests] are really not helpful at all," he said."The danger with a RAT, in our environment right now, is it's a high risk of a false negative and what that could mean is you actually have COVID, but the test is negative and therefore you're out in the community spreading the disease.
outrageous they were not legal after the UK made them so 12 months ago.
“Decriminalised”
In SA they went from illegal to out of stock instantly. I've seen none available anywhere here, and know of no one who has been able to purchase one without buying from an online interstate supplier.
What's Mark done during the last two years?
We know.