When Will We See At-Home COVID-19 Testing?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

If we’re going to slow down the coronavirus pandemic and get people out of their homes and safely back to work, experts agree part of what’s needed is widespread testing. Right now, you can only get a test at a hospital or clinic, however, so widespread testing would potentially expose more people to the virus. At-home diagnostics could provide additional testing with less risk of sharing sickness — and labs and startups are hurrying fill that need.

“In the situation where a person would like to know if they’re positive so they can make [distancing] decisions, but they’re not severely ill enough that they need to seek medical attention, a test can provide peace of mind,” says Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “That’s where these [at-home tests] can be very useful. Even for influenza, the health system simply does not have bandwidth to have medically-provided tests for everybody who just wants to know.”

In late March, the FDA curtailed marketing efforts by a few eager startups, warning consumers the agency had not authorized any at-home tests, and even calling the tests that were being billed as available “fraudulent.”

Rolling Stone reached out to five scientists and doctors — including some working for companies developing tests — to sort out the status of at-home testing for COVID-19. All agreed the main challenge is regulations. As of this writing, the FDA has not approved a single at-home testing kit for COVID-19; for that to happen, companies marketing tests have to prove the tests work — that a user can follow instructions, collect a usable sample, that the sample won’t be damaged in the mail if it’s being sent to a lab, and that the results will be as accurate as the tests done by a doctor on a patient in a hospital.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/at-home-covid-19-coronavirus-pcr-antibody-testing-983958/

[beachbumbob]

1. problem will be on the reliability side

[intrepidity]

2. For an administration that hates regulations

and does everything possible to remove them, they sure are suddenly stringent when it comes to increasing covid19 testing, aren't they?

What gives?

[pnwmom]

3. It's being offered in King County WA as part of "SCAN," a public health dept. research study.

People sign up if they're willing to volunteer -- whether or not they have any symptoms. The participants fill out a questionnaire answering health questions, and then public health drops a kit off on the doorstep, and picks it up the next day. They post ID numbers with results in about a week.

It will be interesting to see what the patterns are of infection in the county, once they've completed their testing.

[Squinch]

4. After Biden is elected.