Woman’s video showing how long it took for her Covid tests to turn positive goes viral: ‘Keep testing’

‘Keep testing, as annoying as that is’, says TV writer after she and her partner become ill

A writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has urged her social media followers to “keep testing” after she explained how she waited 11 days for a positive test result after her partner became infectious.

Explaining the situation in a TikTok video on Wednesday, Ariel Dumas said it began when her partner tested for Covid on 10 December with a PCR test, and was positive. He did not find out his result until 14 December.

She said she took at-home “rapid” tests on 13 and 14 December which were were negative, but that she also began experiencing Covid symptoms. Both the TV writer and her partner are vaccinated and boosted, she added.

On 19 December, Ms Dumas said she decided to take a PCR test that returned as a positive result on 21 December, which she said was 11 days after her partner first fell ill.

“That’s a full 11 days after my partner tested positive,” Ms Dumas said in the TikTok, which has now been viewed thousands of times on the social media platform, and on Twitter.

“Moral of the story, if you think you have a bad cold, you don’t. You have Covid, said Ms Dumas. “The reason you’re testing negative is probably because your viral load is not beefy enough to show up on a test. Keep testing.”

She said the aim of the TikTok was to show why regular testing was important to stop giving Covid to others, “as annoying as that is”.

While it is not not known if the New York-based writer become infected with the Omicron variant of Covid, the World Health Organisation says the original strain can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to materialise.

Reports from the UK, where the new Covid strain has taken hold, suggests the incubation period of Omicron may be shorter than the first strain of the virus.

As have anecdotal accounts suggested that symptoms appear much faster in sufferers.

An epidemiologist Michael Mina explained on Twitter that people “staying negative in the first days after they have symptoms was “expected” and that: “Symptoms don’t [equal] contagious virus.”

“If you are symptomatic and negative – although it means you’re prob not contagious at that moment, be very very cautious,” he said. “Quarantine even if possible and test the next morning or that night. (Sometimes even longer)”.