COVID-19 tests can spot variants, lab companies insist

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The nation’s largest testing companies and laboratories say their coronavirus tests are prepared to accurately identify new virus strains as they emerge.

“We’ve continued to track these new variants as they emerge,” Dr. Mary Rodgers, principal scientist and head of infectious disease research at Abbott, told ABC News. “We’ve been bringing in samples to confirm our prediction based on the sequences, which indicate that there’s no cause for concern for any of our Abbott tests.”

Public health experts argue that such concerns from the federal government are legitimate and should compel testing companies to continue evaluating whether their tests are able to detect variants that are not yet on their radar. “The antibody tests, at this stage, certainly are not able to determine or distinguish variation in Sars-cov-2 strains,” said Dr. Jessica Justman, an associate professor of medicine in epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. “So, you can’t get an antibody test and say ‘I have an antibody to the new variant.’ We just don’t have that kind of test yet.

The Biden administration announced a $230 million-dollar deal with Ellume, an Australian digital diagnostics company, to provide 8.5 million over the counter at-home tests. Ellume plans to produce 100,000 testing kits per month through July and ramp up to 19 million a month by the end of the year.

 

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horrible

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Really? Where are the data on those variants?

POTUS VP Lets get that Defense Act rolling for these tests ASAP! Get FDA approval for Aviptadil ASAP!

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this is terrible news

GreenNewDeal MedicareForAll

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