Runny nose is the most commonly-reported symptom of Omicron. For nearly two years, millions of members of the public have been submitting daily health reports to the ZOE COVID Study, helping us to track the pandemic as it unfolds.
For most omicron variants in circulation today, this is one to three days, depending on the initial amount of virus you get exposed to.
The answer is yes, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reported that at-home tests known as rapid antigen tests “may have reduced sensitivity” at detecting the omicron variant, says Mary Hayden, MD, chief of infectious diseases and the James Lowenstine Professor of Internal Medicine at RUSH ...
Unsupervised SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen testing with three commercial kits had 70% to 81% sensitivity during the period when Omicron emerged and became predominant in the Netherlands.
The time from exposure to symptom onset (known as the incubation period) is thought to be two to 14 days. Symptoms typically appeared within five days for early variants, and within four days for the Delta variant. The incubation period appears to be even shorter – about three days – for the Omicron variant.
If you no longer have symptoms after five days or are fever-free for at least 24 hours without using a fever-reducing medication, you do not need to take another COVID-19 test to confirm you are no longer positive, unless you have been directed to by your workplace or school.
You are most infectious (or contagious) in the first 5 days after your symptoms start. You can also spread COVID-19 in the 48 hours before your symptoms start. If you never have symptoms, consider yourself most infectious in the 5 days after you test positive.
You can pass on the infection to others, even if you have no symptoms. Many people with COVID-19 will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days. If you have a positive COVID-19 test result, try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days after the day you took your test.
If you test positive or have symptoms
End isolation on Day 6 if: You test negative, AND. Have no fever for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medication, AND. Your other symptoms are gone or going.