TAMPA — For weeks, any COVID-19 test a drive-thru patient received in Tampa Bay involved that uncomfortable, awkward jab of a swab into their nose.

Doctors described it as “mildly irritating.” Patients were more colorful. One said it felt like they touched his brain.

But any feeling of discomfort or pain was soothed by the reassurance that a swab through your nose, known as a nasopharyngeal test, was recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the preferred collection method.

So when Jennifer Koren, who had a fever and was approved for a test, heard the community testing site at Raymond James Stadium was using oral swabs, she was concerned. The research she had done showed those tests to be less effective.

“My doctor advised me to get a nasal swab or a blood test, but I don’t know where to do that," Koren said. “Those aren’t the resources available to us. The public site at the stadium was only doing the throat swab.”

Hillsborough County depends on the state for test kits it receives to collect samples at its drive-thru site, said Jon-Paul Lavandeira, executive manager for Hillsborough County Code Enforcement. The first batches it received were all nasal swabs, matching those used by BayCare Health Systems and other sites around the region.

But when the state sent more supplies to replenish the depleted stock, the county received oral swabs instead.

“That’s driven exclusively by the supply we receive from the state,” Lavandeira said. “We just have to roll with whatever weapons they send us to do battle with.”

Dr. John Sinnott said Koren and others shouldn’t be alarmed when they see a new protocol being used, even if it was something previously thought to be less effective. Sinnott is chairman of internal medicine at the University of South Florida and an epidemiologist at Tampa General Hospital.

“We need to make clear in any discussion that this is a new virus,” Sinnott said. “What I say today could be wrong or different tomorrow.”

Though the nasal swab was the preferred testing method initially, the CDC updated its guidelines this month, allowing medical professionals to go through the mouth to collect a test sample. This is known as an oropharyngeal specimen.

“It was initially thought that throat swabs did not have a good yield,” Sinnot said. “But now the Centers for Disease Control have said it is an alternative to swab the throat and it will decrease the need for personal protective equipment, which we know is in very short supply. And it also places the person getting the sample at less risk.”

One side effect of the more invasive nasal swab is that it caused some people to cough or sneeze, potentially putting the health care provider collecting the sample in direct line of viral particles carrying the novel coronavirus.

“The one thing you prefer in your life to not do is to be in front of someone with this coughing on you,” Sinnot said. “The nasopharyngeal swab is sort of the gold standard. It has the highest yield. But when you balance the risks and all this other stuff, it’s probably a good idea if you foresee there will be problems to go ahead and do an oral swab.”

The decision to use the oral swab at the Raymond James site was based not on risk calculations, but simply on the supplies provided. Though Lavandeira could not speak to the medical nature of the tests, he said there is a vetting process that all test kits go through before the state distributes them to the county and other test sites.

“I don’t want people out there thinking we’re willy-nilly grabbing anything to see if it sticks,” Lavandeira said. “There is a process to make sure it is medically blessed.”

When Koren went to the stadium test site last week, a medical professional in a mask and gown asked her to open her mouth, reached down and swabbed each side of her throat.

“It was like a two-second test,” Koren said. “Obviously, it went pretty far back, but it was nothing like I heard about the nose swabs that take 20 to 25 seconds and are very uncomfortable.”

Koren’s results came back just a few days later. They were negative. But she still had her fever and was on day eight of feeling symptomatic, “just completely run down.”

“There’s no other reason I should be feeling this way,” Koren said. “I don’t trust it. I don’t think it’s reliable.”

Her doctor recommended she get retested with either a nasal swab or a blood test.

No test is ever 100-percent effective, Sinnot said, but he encouraged people like Koren who are concerned they might have received a false negative to check with a doctor on whether they should get retested with a nasal swab.

BayCare, which is operating drive-thru sites in Pinellas, Polk and Pasco, is still using the nasal swab.

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