On Friday, Abbott Laboratories announced that the Food And Drug Administration (FDA) approved emergency use of its new Abbott ID NOW COVID-19 test.

Abbott ID NOW COVID-19 can deliver positive test results for coronavirus in five minutes and negative results in 13. The test itself is about the size of a small toaster yet small enough that it can be used in any setting, including physician’s office or urgent care clinics.

Abbott Laboratories has promised to ramp up its production to make 50,000 units per day beginning next week. They need to test everyone ASAP, send the sick into isolation at home if they are asymptomatic or the hospital if they are bad enough to need to be admitted.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to a COVID-19 test that delivers positive results in five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes.

Abbott Laboratories claims its ID NOW COVID-19 test could dramatically change the battle against the novel coronavirus in the US. The test runs on Abbott’s ID NOW platform, which is the most common point-of-care test in the US. It is also used to test other viruses including Influenza A&B, Strep A and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) testing.

The medical device is small and compact enough that it can be used in nearly any healthcare setting, expanding the number of places it can be used to detect the novel virus. The medical device, which is about the size of a toaster, is portable and can be set up anywhere, from a physician’s office to an urgent care clinic, the company boasted in a press release.

“Abbott’s ID NOW COVID-19 test will help battle the pandemic in real-time by bringing vital information in minutes to frontline clinicians who are working to stop the spread of the virus,” John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics. [Business Insider]

What we need is a test that goes directly to homes and drive threw testing, if the test is only given in a medical facility we will just keep spreading it, we may slow it down but not at the rate if we had drive threw or home testing, let’s get on that now!

Try to distribute to India, Italy, and the U.K. as soon as possible. If you have to give free equipment to them, make the sacrifice!

 

This piece was written by Wayne Dupree on March 28, 2020. It originally appeared in WayneDupree.com and is used by permission.

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