Old school nursing trick: take a quick whiff of rubbing alcohol. (Don't huff it, don't snort it, don't inhale it for a long time. just a quick whiff). It interrupts the "gotta puke" signal in the brain.

Ah, yes I see that page was updated September 2022. That would be after 2021, which I specified was the time I was doing the swabs and later the vaccines.

since when? I am an RN and did one of the mass COVID testing sites in my town (back in 2021) and later one of the mass COVID vaccine clinics.

24-48 hours post suspected exposure is the generally accepted minimum wait time to have a sufficient viral load for a rapid test to be accurate. 72 hours post exposure is considered ideal for testing. I appreciate you clarifying/implying that you would obviously be quarantining from the time of suspected exposure, for the health and safety of others, even if a rapid test couldn't give you an accurate result in the first day or so.

To piggyback off this: as an RN, I use this trick almost daily (during wound cares and such) and a darling older attending MD taught me way back in nursing school during a clinical rotation. He was so helpful to us!