Gates Foundation to soon offer home-testing kits for coronavirus in Seattle area

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: Q13 News Seattle

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced it will begin offering home-testing kits for people in the Seattle area for the new coronavirus in the coming weeks.

The Seattle Times reports in a story on Sunday that it's not clear when the project will launch, but it's ramping up as quickly as possible. Seattle has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, with 14 deaths linked to a Seattle-area nursing home.

People who think they've been infected can fill out a questionnaire online and request a test kit if their symptoms are consistent with the illness the virus causes. The kits will be delivered within two hours and include nose swabs.

The samples will be sent to a lab at the University of Washington for testing, and results should be available in a few days. The home-testing kits mean people won't have to go to a doctor's office and possibly infect other people.

Read more: https://q13fox.com/2020/03/08/gates-foundation-to-soon-offer-home-testing-kits-for-coronavirus-in-seattle-area/

[TwilightZone]

1. Sorry for the snark, but isn't Gates a billionaire?

Thank you to the Gates Foundation for being proactive. Someone has to be.

[sheshe2]

2. I was just going to mention that.

One candidate wants to take all their money away because they are evil.

I will join in that thank you, TZ.

[rickyhall]

12. Oh, boy, 1 billionaire has a conscience. With Soros & Blumberg that's makes 3.

Out of over 600. My opinion of billionaires hasn't changed.

[DENVERPOPS]

19. Besides

It's in the Billionaire's best interests to be proactive, to cause as little interruption or depletion of their worker bees.........

[sheshe2]

3. K&R

[TDale313]

4. Good for them, but fucked up we have to rely on

Private philanthropy and not the system actually working to protect its citizens.

[Dem2theMax]

13. Sounds like the GOP plan.

Make private citizens pay for a crisis, so there's plenty of tax money left over for the wall.

[mountain grammy]

17. Exactly!

We’re depending on our corporate overlords.

[yaesu]

5. please sir, may i have another?

how does it feel like to be living in 19th century England?

[erronis]

9. +1

[tavernier]

6. I think the Gates have proven themselves to be giving and caring people.

This doesn’t surprise me.

[reACTIONary]

28. +10 nt

[Talitha]

7. How about Bezos stepping up to bat.

And all the others who got that 'beautiful' tax break.

C'mon, do some good with it... let's see how many of you have a Soul.

I triple-dog-dare you.

[demigoddess]

14. how about ALL the billionaires?

[BlueIdaho]

27. What about our government doing its job?

The epic failure of the Trump administration just can’t be overlooked here - they could be doing the same thing the Gates Foundation is.

[demigoddess]

34. we are a democracy, in a democracy the people show the government the way. Not the other way round.

[BlueIdaho]

35. I don't remember it that way

When the polio epidemic was going full tilt.

[demigoddess]

36. I heard that Henry Ford paid his people more because he believed they should be paid

enough to afford their own product. How many companies have that goal these days?

[dchill]

8. Where are they getting the tests?

Seems the government doesn't have any - they could use a tip to a source.

[erronis]

10. I can't imagine it's just having more Billions than trump's supposed. Amazon?

I haven't looked (don't want to) but I'm sure that there are sellers on Amazon that will offer next-day delivery.

Everyone know about the rates of false positives and negatives? How dangerous those can be?

[SunSeeker]

18. A Covid-19 test is commercially available. A Utah company is selling test kits to the EU.

http://codiagnostics.com/products/diagnostic-solutions/logix-smart-covid19/

The problem is, the CDC won't approve it for the US. The CDC insisted on creating their own test, which they initially botched and had to rework and redistribute. The CDC is the bottleneck for testing.

[DENVERPOPS]

21. The CDC is merely trying

to cope with the massive budget cuts in their funding by Trump.........Along with cuts to NIH etc etc etc

Don't go after the CDC, Sun Seeker............

[SunSeeker]

22. I'm not "going after the CDC." There are excellent scientists there who are very frustrated.

I'm just stating a fact. Yes, they have woefully inadequate resouces. That is causing the bottleneck. Insisting on their own test would not be a problem if they had the resources to produce it. But they don't. And CDC Head Dr. Robert Redfield, a Trump appointee, is all about helping Trump, not the people of our country. He is a right wing loon. https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=248926

[reACTIONary]

29. The kits are pretty simple....

... The main component is a nose swab. The swabs are taken to a state university for analysis, and the results are ready in a few days.

[erronis]

11. This supposes that there are 100's of millions of kits available, right now.

Reliable ones. Not the shit that turd's company put out.

(We all know that turd has a vested interest in a company that made the false kits, right?)

[BigmanPigman]

20. I suspected that, it is proven?

[reACTIONary]

30. False kits? What does that mean?

Do you mean defective?

[eppur_se_muova]

15. Yay, rescued by billionaires ! Proof positive that capitalism isn't broken !

Democracy, on the other hand ...

[Karadeniz]

16. This is going to be terrific. If only the woman who had a day's long odyssey to get tested (and

She still hasn't been) had this process available, she'd know now where she stands.

[msongs]

23. how many test kits is bernie giving out? hmm, who really loves ya nt

[keithbvadu2]

24. But Trump/Pence say they are doing things in a perfect manner.

But Trump/Pence say they are doing things in a perfect manner.

Perfect and beautiful.

[iluvtennis]

25. Very happy to see this as the federal gov't is incompetent. nt

[Farmer-Rick]

26. Oh yuck, you made me go to a FOX station site...now I have to shower

Well, I'm not sure the foundation is doing it for free. Nothing at the site said it was free or that it cost.

I'm sure Trump will either try to stop him, ask him to shut up about the numbers or get him to charge so much it will be beyond most people's ability...to keep the numbers low. Trump just gave Bill a $10 billion federal contract that Bill probably doesn't want to jeopardize.

[pat_k]

32. Here you go

Link to original Seattle Times article
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/gates-funded-program-will-soon-offer-home-testing-kits-for-new-coronavirus/

[Farmer-Rick]

33. Thanks.

[pat_k]

31. Great news! (plus link to original Seattle Times article)

Link to original Seattle Times article Q13 is reporting on:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/gates-funded-program-will-soon-offer-home-testing-kits-for-new-coronavirus/