It's Friday, August fourteen. I'm Oscar Emrrors from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. Doctor's offices, nursing homes, and federal officials are in a scramble to obtain point of care COVID nineteen tests from the only two companies that have emergency approval to produce them. There have been some concern about accuracy with these tests, but they are useful for quicker results and don't need to be sent away to a lab. Sarah Krause, reporter
for The Wall Street Journal, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Sarah, thanks for having me. We've been talking about testing throughout this whole process of the coronavirus pandemic, and one of the tests that everybody has kind of been looking for these point of care COVID nineteen tests. Something that you could find in a doctor's office and nursing home, something like that where you can just basically go take the test there and maybe twenty minutes later
you'd get your results. And right now we only have two companies that are approved to actually make and distribute these things, but there's so much demand for them. It's really hard for them to keep up, right now, So tell us a little bit about these sure, So these are as you say, point of care tests that sit you know, in a doctor's office in a nursing home
and deliver results in about fifteen minutes. And what I was writing about in particular, are rapid response antigen tests, so they are looking for virus proteins while some other tests look for the virus is genetic material Um. But for this particular type of tests, which represents a small but growing area of COVID nineteen testing in the US, there are two companies that have Emergency Youth authorization for their tests. One is struggling to produce enough analyzers to
meet demand and the other is struggling to make enough tests. Now, what is the accuracy of these I know that we've seen a lot of stories about how sometimes they can deliver false negatives, things like that, how do these tests fair? That is still a concern um and early sort of figures said that these tests had a higher chance of producing a false negative than the sort of pcror molecular
tests that were out there at the time. Now, federal officials have said that as these tests are more widely used. It's becoming clear that the accuracy is more comparable, but it's still a concern. Some doctor's offices have said, you know, they're a little bit wary and and really because they don't want to tell someone that they're negative and let them go back to school or go back to work, and when in fact, um they are infected. So in some cases this does require a follow up molecular test.
So who are these two companies that are the only ones authorized at this moment? If you mentioned that they each have their own kind of unique problems, So tell us who the two companies are sure? So one is quite al corp and one is backed in Dickinson and Company. And these two companies create both the test as well as the analyzer or box that you insert the test
in to get the result. So you need that, you know, as you can imagine, that ecosystem has a lot of different components that all have to fit together to create a system that works. And these are testing systems that also run flu tests or strep tests, and some of them were already in circulation prior to the pandemic. But because they're such a thirst for COVID testing, particularly testing that delivers results in minutes rather than days. Their systems
are in high demand. Um. So it's it's about being able to get access to both the analyzer to run the test as well as the test themselves. And now one of the important questions for everything how much do they cost? Because they have a unique structure with how to either buy them you can lease them. Let's say you know, by the box, but buy a bunch of other tests for flu and strep throat, including COVID tests. They have like this weird structure on how to acquire
these things. Yeah, there's different sales policies at each company. But if we look at Quitel for example, um, they sell the analyzers outright for about each or they give the analyzer for free if you agree to buy a certain number of tests COVID and non COVID to to run on it. Um and so um. You know that this is something that practices. You know, small either pediatricians or doctor's offices are trying to figure out what they
can afford. You know, do they need to use one of these companies flu tests, you know, instead of what they're currently using because in buying them along with COVID tests,
they're able to get this machine. So there is sort of a business choice that some practices that want these machines are having to make, you know, and in the background, the federal government has placed a large order for a lot of these machines to dispatch their nursing homes where there's been a lot of outbreaks and really an outbreak
settings or where experts say these tests are useful. Um, they can help you sort of quickly identify people who are infected and and then isolate and do contact tracing from there. So the ability to quickly get information that you can act on is the main benefit of this type of test. I know right now, obviously we're facing surgeon cases and a lot of places and there's the
need for mass testing. But do they feel that these kind of point of contact tests are going to be the future by basically when maybe we don't need as much testing, these are the ones that they're going to be using primarily, you know, I think in particularly over the next several months, you know, we're going to have a mix of tests. These tests, these rapid antigen tests are a pretty small component of testing in the US right now, but they're expected to grow rapidly. There are
other molecular point of care tests. You know, the habit I D now is one that that folks might have heard about. Um, those are also used in you know, doctor's office type settings. So right now we're at this moment where there are a number of new testing technologies that are being brought online that will continue to diversify that pool. Um, you know, so it's sort of influx at this time. Most of the tests that the average consumer is getting right now is a molecular or so
called like PCR test. And when it comes to the shortages that these companies are facing, is it kind of the same shortages that a lot of other testing needs are you know, swabs, different things like that. Yeah, it's it's swabs, and it's pure manufacture during capacity um, you know, in terms of being able to crank these machines and and and tests out fast enough to then dispatch to
all the places where they're wanted and needed. I mean, it definitely seems like these rapid response tests are going to be increasing in demand overall. As we mentioned doctors, nursing homes, it would be great to just have something so you don't have to wait days and you can get that answer right away. But just like everywhere else, the demand is so great and the supplies are so few,
it's they're just having a hard time keep up. Yeah, And you know, I think in July, you know, when you saw people waiting two weeks or even longer for the results of diagnostic tests that were sent all the way out to labs, it's sort of underscored the importance of immediate results that you can act on and and sort of have information that can lead to, you know, subsequent decisions to isolate or contact trace. You know, so
there's a thirst for for answers quickly now. Sarah Krause, reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.