Good afternoon, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) sports fans.
Promising news in the fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
You’ve seen the reports that testing is performed at a very uneven level through the states – and in many cases, people don’t get their results back until a week later.
Now comes the news from the Hartford Courant that the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval to Yale’s saliva-based COVID test used by the National Basketball Association (NBA). According to the report:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Saturday issued an emergency use authorization to the Yale School of Public Health for its saliva-based coronavirus test that the school has used to test NBA players for the past several months.
The test called SalivaDirect uses a new method of processing saliva samples when testing for COVID-19 and was developed in conjunction with the NBA, which funded part of the research.
It is the fifth saliva-based COVID-19 test that the FDA has approved on an emergency basis. Several universities and colleges, including Quinnipiac University, are using saliva-based testing to get their students at-home tests before they return to campus.
Many experts believe the saliva-based test will be a major breakthrough in increasing testing for the coronavirus since it is quicker to get results and doesn’t require the amount of equipment that current nasal swab tests do. There have been shortages of the cotton swabs needed to do the nasal test as well as the reagent required to mix with the sample in the laboratory.
By now, it’s common knowledge that increased testing is the way you get a handle on COVID-19 pandemic is through increased testing. And this is very promising news. Might actually help us have college basketball this year.
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