Maintaining a safe workplace is a crucial strategy in the era of COVID-19. Today's guest author, Michael Gelman, MD PhD, discusses how testing can play a critical role going forward.
A lot of people are getting very excited about Michael Mina’s proposed strategy of cheap, rapid, frequent testing. From his Op-Ed in the Times, to his appearance on TWiV, to this article in the Atlantic, there’s a lot of hope around the potential for inexpensive antigen tests, like the Abbott BinaxNow - which quickly got bought up by the Department of Health and Human Services through December’s anticipated production. It’s possible that another company funded by a U.S. Government initiative might come out with something as good, or better, in the near future. (And no, I don’t have any inside information on any of this. Not that I haven’t asked around.) All this comes amid the CDC’s controversial revision of its testing guidelines, as well as a recent FDA statement that points out the unknowns around repurposing a test, which was originally developed for diagnosis, to screen large numbers of asymptomatic persons. Meanwhile, another Times article points out what many of us have known for months: that a positive PCR test late in the course of illness may be more of a hindrance than a help.
