Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Quest Wins First FDA Approval To Conduct 'Pooled' COVID Testing
The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval to a new approach to coronavirus testing that combines test samples in batches instead of running them one by one, speeding up the process. The FDA said Saturday that it reissued an emergency use authorization to Quest Diagnostics to use its COVID-19 test with pooled samples. It is the first test to be authorized to be used in this way. (7/19)
The FDA said that Quest Diagnostics will now be able to group up to four samples together. This is aimed at easing the current testing crunch driven by the spike in new infections. (Ollstein, 7/18)
The method isn't novel, it's been around for decades, and has been used during the pandemic by several countries, including China, Germany, Israel and Thailand. Pooled testing has also been used by the U.S. military since the 1940s. An unpublished report from the White House coronavirus task force this week put 18 states in the "red zone," meaning that they all have 100 new cases per 100,000 people per week. (Johnson, 7/18)
