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An at-home COVID-19 testing method that is spreading like wildfire on social media claims that people should swab their throat instead of their nose in order to get a more accurate test result.

NewsCenter 5 interviewed three different doctors about the throat swab method, and each of them said at-home COVID-19 tests were developed, studied and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be used a certain way — by swabbing the nose.

"I think any recommendation to swab your throat would be premature, and I think it's important to follow the directions on the tests as they are written," said Dr. Helen Boucher, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts Medical Center and the interim dean of the Tufts University School of Medicine.

"Right now, these kinds of reports are just that — just reports and rumors that are kind of going around," said Dr. Nate Hafer, an assistant professor of molecular medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. "We don't have any hard data yet showing that swabbing the throat versus the nasal area is any better."

"People are not going to like it. It's probably going to cause a little bit of a gag reflex," said Dr. Brian Cruz, regional director for PhysicianOne Urgent Care.

When it comes to efficacy, Boucher said she is not aware of any data that suggests any brands of authorized, at-home COVID-19 test perform better than others.

"I think, really, the best thing to do is to use the test that you have available," Boucher said. "Most of them have very good directions with diagrams to help you. So using them as directed is another layer of protection that can be added to the other measures that we have."

In order to ensure that negative results from at-home COVID-19 tests are accurate, Cruz recommends that people who are asymptomatic test multiple times over multiple days.

"To do serial testing is more beneficial to try to pick up the virus than just one test and think: 'Hey, I'm OK to go,'" Cruz said.

At-home COVID-19 test kits, however, can be expensive. According to the Internal Revenue Service, those kits can be paid for or reimbursed with a health savings account.

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