How long after exposure before you will test positive? What say you Harvard Medical School?

[frazzled]

6. So, it seems that

You shouldn't even bother getting tested until at least three days after you have actual symptoms. (At which point you probably feel too ill to go get tested.) Otherwise, just keep self-isolating if you think you may have been exposed in any way (which is every time you go to the grocery I guess). This is pretty much what we've been doing anyway.

This was sort of the protocol at the beginning of the pandemic, when only symptomatic people were told to get tested. Are we going in circles?

ON EDIT: It seems that people really shouldn't get tested until symptoms, because otherwise a false negative will lead to a false sense of security and possible spread.