In their seminal paper, Damialis and colleagues (1) report that, in early 2020, higher airborne pollen concentrations were related to higher COVID-19 infection rates. As a mechanism, the authors propose that “pollen exposure weakens the immunity … by diminishing the antiviral interferon response.” Although they assume an effect for the whole population, they speculate that it could be stronger for those with allergies. As a limitation, they acknowledge that they did not account for the countries’ testing strategies. As allergic people may be more likely to show symptoms that may be mistaken for those of COVID-19 (runny nose, headache, increased temperature), we explored whether people with allergies were more prone to get a rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen test. Moreover, we assessed whether the test result was more likely to be positive among those with allergies. 1. A. Damialis et al., Higher airborne pollen concentrations correlated with increased SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, as evidenced from 31 countries across the globe. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 118, e2019034118 (2021).