If you work for Novant Health and were approved for a Religious or Medical exemption you have to wear a N95 and starting September 20, 2021 you have to be tested for COVID-19 prior to the start of each work week.

The test Novant chose was AccessBio's Carestart Rapid Antigen testing.

The following was taken directly from the Carestart website:

https://www.carestart.com/covid-19-rapid-antigen-test-kits-health-care-professionals?utm_medium=nps&utm_source=goo&utm_campaign=AX_health_care_professionals_081621&utm_term=&utm_content=

The CareStart™ COVID-19 Antigen Test is a lateral flow immunochromatographic assay intended for the qualitative detection of the nucleocapsid protein antigen from SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal or anterior nasal swab specimens directly collected from individuals who are either suspected of COVID-19 by their healthcare provider within the first five days of symptom onset or from individuals without symptoms or other epidemiological reasons to suspect COVID-19 when tested twice over two or three days with at least 24 hours and no more than 48 hours between tests

In order for this test to be accurate, considering the testing is mandated for "other epidemiological reasons" aka "we are unvaccinated" we are supposed to be tested twice over two or three days.

This was taken from the WHO website : https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/how-do-vaccines-work

Vaccines contain weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism (antigen) that triggers an immune response within the body. That immune response triggers memory cells. The body is trained to fight the specific disease-causing organism, building up memory of the pathogen so as to rapidly fight it if and when exposed in the future.

Vaccines do NOT prevent you from getting diseases. You can still get them but chances are your symptoms will be lessened. As a result you could have COVID-19 and not realize it yet the employees who are vaccinated are NOT required to submit to weekly testing.

If Novant actually cared about the so called spread of COVID-19 they would make ALL of their employees regardless of their Vaccine status get tested and they would test according to protocol!

There are many people submitting to this testing, myself included, because it was the right decision for us. It's an absolute shame that as healthcare workers we can't decide what is right for us. By choosing what we feel is right we are forced to wear masks that clearly identify us as unvaccinated and we have to go through weekly testing as though we are a threat.

It's discouraging to some because we are giving in but at the end of the day the most important thing is that we did not get vaccinated. Wearing a mask and being easily identified may be a good opportunity to share your beliefs on not getting vaccinated. Although we are being swabbed and there is a lot of negativity towards them they are way better than the alternative. Once you get vaccinated, you can't take it back.

It's hard to stay optimistic right now, but we have to stay strong and hope that everything will get better soon!