Apparently, I have access to the previous post that was removed. I'll paste what seemed like good info and the confab with the person that posted it.

Other Person:

FDA:

Q: How is the expiration date determined for an at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test and can it be extended? A: All at-home OTC COVID-19 diagnostic tests are labeled with an expiration date printed on the outer box or package. Generally, tests should not be used beyond this expiration date. However, as discussed here, these expiration dates can be extended beyond the date printed on the outer box or package as additional stability data is collected.

COVID-19 test manufacturers perform studies to show how long after manufacturing COVID-19 tests perform as accurately as the day the test was manufactured. The shelf-life is how long the test should perform as expected and is measured from the date the test was manufactured. The expiration date is set at the end of the shelf-life and is the date through which the test is expected to perform as accurately as when manufactured.

The testing to determine this time period is called stability testing because it is confirming the time period over which the performance is expected to remain stable. There are different types of stability testing. The most accurate is real-time stability testing, where the manufacturer stores the tests for the time period of the proposed shelf-life (plus a little extra time to ensure the expiration date can be relied upon) and then evaluates its ability to perform accurately. For example, for a proposed 12-month shelf-life, the manufacturer would evaluate the performance after storing the test for 13 months.

In some cases, accelerated testing provides a faster way to estimate the stability of a test's performance over time by storing the test for a shorter time at a higher temperature, and then evaluating its ability to perform accurately. However, since accelerated testing only estimates the test stability, it does not provide as much assurance as real-time data, especially for longer time periods. Based on experience with tests and stability testing, accelerated testing typically provides sufficient assurance to label tests with a shelf-life of up to six months.

Since it takes time for test manufacturers to perform stability testing, the FDA typically authorizes at-home COVID-19 tests with a shelf-life of about four to six months from the day the test was manufactured, based on initial study results, and it may be extended later as additional data is collected.

Once the test manufacturer has more stability testing results, such as 12 or 18 months, the test manufacturer can contact the FDA to request that the FDA authorize a longer shelf-life. When a longer shelf-life is authorized, the expiration dates will be extended and the test manufacturer may send a notice to customers to provide the new authorized expiration dates, so the customers know how long they can use the tests they already have. If you did not purchase your at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test directly from the test manufacturer, you may not receive such a notice.

You can check the Expiration Date column of the List of Authorized At-Home OTC COVID-19 Diagnostic Tests to see if the expiration date for your at-home OTC COVID-19 test has been extended and how to find any new expiration date.

Q. Can I use an FDA-authorized at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test that is expired? A: The expiration date for an at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test may be extended beyond the date printed on the outer box or package as additional stability data is collected. You can check the Expiration Date column of the List of Authorized At-Home OTC COVID-19 Diagnostic Tests to see if the expiration date for your at-home OTC COVID-19 test has been extended and how to find any new expiration date.

Me:

That's a lot of good information. Thank You.

It does seem to confirm that the test I received have spent most of their useful life in storage with only a fraction remaining. From what your saying my guesstimate of manufacturing date was close. To update it with your information, if I'm correct that means they were manufactured between July 17 2023 and Sep 17 2023 and I received them yesterday Oct 3 2024.

So they are good for 16 to 18 months from the date of manufacture. They are in the hands of the "end user" for their remaining 3 months (the extended expiration). That means they were stored i.e.unusable for at least 80% of their useful life (about 81 to 83%), if I did that correctly.

Am I correct or?

It seems like the program needs work, otherwise a lot of money and material is wasted without being able to be useful. Ideally, the test should be usable for much more of their lifespan right?

Other Person:

But they may extend it again, still they can't know how long it's good for until it isn't.

Me:

Is it normal to extend multiple times? That's news to me. I would really appreciate it, if it was 6 more months or more. Partially, I just hate throwing unused stuff away.

It still seems like the 60 day guarantee is a little low, especially given your information. If mine are normal/average, then most should be good at least a year, if not one and a half plus. So the guarantee is still a very small percentage of useful life.

Other Person:

Some of the older ones were extended up to another 12-15 months (over multiple extensions). They just can't say how long it will last until it stops working, so another extension is possible or even likely depending on how good these are. You do have options if they don't extend it to keep from throwing it away unused. You could use it. Lol

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end of thread

I didn't get to respond as the post was removed but I did message her and thank her for all the good information. I do hope I don't use them all because I normally am not sick that many times a year. I received all 4 but I do live alone. So if I use them all, I will have had a very bad couple of months.

Still, maybe I'll be lucky and they extend them again. I also don't know the normal or average only my experience. I only believe that it may be more common because of the very short 60 day guarantee. It would be nice to hear otherwise. I just hope that most test don't sit unusable warehoused for 80% plus of their lifespan. Of course, I don't know, hence the questions.