Use of at-home coronavirus tests jumped during the omicron wave

The use of at-home coronavirus tests surged during the winter omicron wave in the United States, with white, high-income and highly educated people most likely to report using the tests, an online survey of U.S. adults suggests.

Between Dec. 19 and March 12, 20.1% of survey respondents who said they had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 reported using an at-home test, up from 5.7% between late August and early December, when delta was the predominant coronavirus variant in the United States.

The use of at-home tests increased over the course of the fall and early winter, the survey found, peaking in January, when 11% of respondents reported having used an at-home test in the previous 30 days.

Nearly 40% of those who used at-home tests said they did so because they had been exposed to someone with COVID-19; 28.9% said they tested themselves because they were experiencing COVID-like symptoms. Testing for work, school and travel was less common, the researchers found. Those who were vaccinated and boosted were more than twice as likely to report using at-home tests as those who were unvaccinated.