I did my test wrong - what should I do?!

[startalovetrain]

I have had covid symptoms and live in a hotspot, and managed to finally get a test today on day 3 of symptoms. The man telling me what to do said to rub on tonsils and not tongue - I rubbed the swab on my one dangly tonsil rather than the actual tonsils at the side

Does this mean the test won't pick up covid if I have it? I also did the nose swab. Anyone know how effective each of these are?

I've been in contact with my sister who's a doctor who has to isolate until I get a negative result but now I'm panicking it won't pick it up if I'm positive! They might make her go back when it's just me not doing the test right

Lots of kids just have their nostrils done so it might be ok.

That's your uvula not a tonsil. If there weren't enough cells it will come back inconclusive and you'd need another test

You swabbed your uvular by the sounds of it.
I imagine if the swab hasn’t collected enough of anything to test it could come back inconclusive but I imagine if you have it, it would have picked something up from the nasal swab. Can’t your sister reassure you?

www.fredhutch.org/en/research/diseases/coronavirus/serology-testing.html

I have to admit, I did exactly the same thing as you back in July. I got a negative result.

I think that will be fine. Some test centres telling parents to just do nose if they can't get tonsils.