Optum Covid Test

[DKLI]

My apologies if this has been asked before.  A friend of mine has 2 tests, ordered from the Optum website, left over from her recent cruise.  She is thinking about using them for general Covid testing, not pre-travel.  Is that possible? Has anyone done that?

 

Thanks.

Karen

[mein18]

Absolutely!  You can just do it yourself with no proctor.  We had an extra one a number of months ago and my wife used it before she went to visit someone in the hospital just to be safe.

[DKLI]

Ok, great...I'll let her know.  Thanks so much!

 

[Mdcwlaf]

I agree with mein18. We had two, of the proctored tests, leftover from a recent cruise. We saved them to use for after we returned home. We waited 3 to 5 days, after returning home, to allow enough time for a more accurate result. We just skipped the video call and used them for our own information. They work exactly like the OTC kits.

[beachluver9]

I have seen the spares being sold on ebay for a big discount for cruisers that have been "back ordered".  The problem with that is that there are expiration dates on the boxes and when your test is scanned at the start of your session, they could tell you "sorry, your kit has expired".  They have now announced an extension of the expiration dates, maybe because there is a shortage?  I don't know for certain.

 

We used the online tests for our November cruise and had no wait and the whole process was easy.  Based on CC chatter there are now waits of up to an hour to start and problems with the app/website.