Cheap, rapid antigen tests may be on the way—and the FDA has finally approved test pooling.
The daily number of COVID-19 diagnostic tests have been increasing, but this expansion has not been able to keep up with demand as the virus continues to spread across many parts of the country. The resulting test shortages—and week-long lags in receiving test results—are crippling the test, trace, and voluntary isolation efforts needed to curb the pandemic. But good testing news may be on the horizon.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the technology conglomerate 3M are now collaborating to roll out a highly accurate antigen test that delivers results within 10 minutes via a paper-based device, somewhat analogous to the way at-home pregnancy tests now work. The MIT/3M test would be an improvement on the point-of-care antigen tests currently offered by Becton Dickinson and Quidel Corporation, which must be scanned by proprietary machines to make diagnoses.
