Potential New Weapon Against Covid-19: Rapid ‘Crappy’ Tests
The FDA is reluctant to approve $1 home-based tests that could drive the pandemic down, experts say
Tests that determine if people have Covid-19 are not helping tamp down the pandemic, experts say. There’s just too much of the coronavirus circulating, too many infections, and those nose-invading PCR tests take forever to yield results, rendering them largely useless. Scientists who understand the problem don’t hold out much hope that the effort will get better anytime soon.
“Our current strategy is so woeful,” says Ashish Jha, MD, a practicing internist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We’re not going to be able to improve our current testing strategy to a point where people will be able to get results quickly.”
In the United States, 700,000 nose-swab PCR tests are being performed daily, on average, up from around 500,000 two months ago. But most people don’t get results for at least two days, and turnaround times range up to two weeks, Jha says.
The testing system “is flailing, with raging outbreaks occurring,” says Michael Mina, MD, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Maybe we only need a really crappy but fast test.”
