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In some areas, obtaining a coronavirus test isn’t straightforward. It could take several days or even weeks to receive results, leaving individuals uncertain of their status and at risk of spreading the virus to others.
Certain health experts now argue that the country’s focus on precise tests that require time to process could actually hinder efforts to manage outbreaks. They advocate for a “crappy” test—less accurate but cheap, widely accessible, and capable of delivering fast results.
In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University, and Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, suggest that saliva-based at-home tests are inexpensive to manufacture and could be distributed on a large scale to enable daily self-testing.
The FDA has yet to approve these paper-strip tests that detect infections, primarily because they are less sensitive than PCR nasal swabs and often result in false negatives. However, Mina argues this isn't the entire picture.
Although these quick paper tests, which change color in 15 minutes, are generally less accurate, they perform reasonably well when high viral loads are present, especially when someone is most contagious. And since they can be used daily, they offer a good chance of detecting an infection. Positive results can be verified with the standard nasal swab test.
Typically, a person visiting a drive-thru or walk-in testing site is tested just once. But with paper tests, individuals can be tested daily, enabling early detection and isolation to prevent the virus from spreading to others, including family, colleagues, or classmates.
Kotlikoff and Mina propose that the government could subsidize and distribute these tests, covering the $1 to $5 cost per test, allowing for real-time monitoring. This approach could dramatically improve testing accessibility, unlike the current system where only one in ten likely positive individuals gets tested.
“If you’re using the test regularly, you’re far more likely to catch someone on the day they might go out and spread the virus,” Mina explained to NPR. “And they’ll know to stay home.”
Companies such as E25Bio have created these tests, but it remains uncertain when, or if, they will receive FDA approval.
