The Biden administration intends to distribute an additional 500 million at-home rapid COVID tests starting in January.
- Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Making rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 cheaper and more accessible can catch the infectious cases before they spread and help everyone resume normal activities safely.
A new over-the-counter COVID-19 test has been authorized by the FDA. Though it can be used to test people with and without symptoms, moderate cost and limited production mean it isn’t a game-changer.
COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing across the US. Testing has ramped up over the past few months, but increasing hospitalizations, deaths and test-positivity rates show that the virus is out of control.
The new BinaxNOW antigen test is quick, easy, accurate and cheap. It could solve the US testing problem, but the emergency use authorization only allows people with COVID-19 symptoms to get tested.
Si bien las pruebas de detección no son tan precisas como las pruebas de diagnóstico, son prometedoras porque son económicas, rápidas, fáciles de producir y no requieren procesamiento de laboratorio.
Testing large numbers of people regularly would reduce the spread of the coronavirus in the US. Laboratory testing is slow and expensive, but rapid screening tests could be the answer.
Ideally everyone could get tested frequently for the coronavirus. No state is close to achieving this, but some are doing better than others. What are the challenges in meeting demand for testing?
The only way to know if a medical treatment actually works is with a randomized-controlled trial.
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