NEW Rapid Antigen Test for COVID (Quick, Cheap, and Reliable) | Rapid Test COVID

So there has been some big news when it comes to covid testing. Recently, Abbott Laboratories came out with a new rapid antigen test called BinaxNOW COVID Ag Card, and it got emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An Emergency use authorization is permission given to unapproved products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening conditions.

Link to FDA website for this test:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press...

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The rapid test covid test costs $5 and detects COVID infection in 15 minutes. This new BinaxNOW rapid antigen test made by Abbott Laboratories uses a nasal swab in the same manner as a rapid flu test. However, unlike most of the other nasal swabs used to test COVID, this one doesn’t have to be jammed all the way up in the nose. According to Abbott, which is listed on the FDA’s website, the test demonstrated 97.1% sensitivity and 98.5% specificity. These tests are compared to samples that tested positive with the PCR method, and they then compare the results.

Also, I should mention that the NIH does independent tests to verify covid tests' accuracy because it's hard to trust a company’s own numbers. But these are the numbers that the company is claiming, and so far, there aren’t independent tests that have been done. The FDA said in a statement that negative results with Abbott's test may need to be confirmed with a lab test in some cases. For example, if there is a high suspicion that someone has COVID based on their symptoms or exposure.

Also, I should add that even if a test is perfect, in theory, it's 100% sensitive and 100% specific, it's still possible to get a false negative – not because of the test itself. Sometimes it's due to the way the test is conducted, meaning poor technique is used. Sometimes, some people can have the covid in their lungs without necessarily having it in their nose when it comes to covid. This was proven, and I did a video to study patients who died of covid. 9 out of the 12 patients had the virus in their lungs but not their nose, and they used PCR testing for this. So that’s something else to keep in mind.

Another aspect of this BinaxNOW test is that it will come with a free mobile app called NOVICA, which will allow users that test negative to display their results as a "digital health pass," This digital health pass would serve as a temporary, date-stamped result that is renewed each time a new test is taken. With the typical PCR tests done, meaning the lab-based ones, you get excellent sensitivity, but they take time, a least a few hours or longer, to get results. Since the pandemic, nasal swab tests sent to a lab have been the standard for COVID screening.

While these PCR tests are considered the most accurate, they take at minimum a few hours before you get results. They’re also expensive and require specialized machines and chemical reagents, and shortages of these supplies have led to delays in getting results. But with this new antigen test, we can quickly identify COVID infections and get them into quarantine. Plus, it’s cheap and mass-produced…Abbott says that starting October, they will ship 50 million tests a month. And following this announcement, the government said they would be purchasing 150 million of these tests from the company.

This will allow massive testing, moving one step closer to getting this pandemic under control, especially when getting schools and businesses reopened, especially with the fall and winter coming, which means cold and flu season. And with such an overlap of symptoms between the common cold, flu, and COVID, this massive scale rapid testing will be all the more important.

Doctor Mike Hansen, MD
Internal Medicine | Pulmonary Disease | Critical Care Medicine
Website: https://doctormikehansen.com/
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