John Moore/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Urgent care clinics and doctors’ offices around the nation will soon have a new method to test for COVID-19, dubbed “a whole new ballgame” by President Donald Trump.
The device, made my Abbott, makes testing for COVID-19 as easy as testing for the flu. The test received emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday.
John Frels, Ph.D., Abbott’s vice president of research and development, announced “This is going to be the fastest molecular point-of-care test to date. It generates a positive result in 5 minutes and negative results in 13 minutes.”
President Trump showed off the new equipment at his daily press briefing on Monday, saying it is “highly accurate.”
Called the ID NOW machine, it can test multiple samples. Once a caretaker administers a swab test, the swab is then mixed in a chemical solution that dissolves the virus and releases the genetic material.
The broken-down sample will then be transported to the ID NOW machine, which will be able to detect the genetic material of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The cost of having such a test will parallel that of the ID NOW flu test, which will be covered by most insurances.
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