Right now, if you wanted to test yourself or people around you for COVID-19, you’d need to head over to a clinic or a hospital to get yourself checked out. While there are kits that can be delivered to your home, you will still need to send those kits back to a lab to get them tested and have the results sent to you.
It’s not the most efficient system, which is why there is some good news on that front. Kroger Health has announced that they are currently looking to obtain FDA approval for what they are calling the first COVID-19 rapid testing kit that can be analyzed using nothing but your own smartphone and an accompanying app.
All users need to do is perform the swab on themselves and using the app, it will attempt to analyze the data using AI to give you the results. That being said, there are some concerns regarding this test. This is because getting swabbed by a medical professional who knows what they’re doing is different compared to swabbing ourselves.
This means that someone who swabbed themselves wrongly could get the wrong results. Also, some have also criticized rapid test kits for not being as accurate compared to PCR tests. However, we suppose getting tested is still better than not getting tested and walking around with the virus in you. When exactly this kit will get FDA approval remains to be seen, but it could prove to be a useful tool for the future and could set a precedent for future smartphone-based medical testing.
Filed in . Read more about Coronavirus, Covid-19 and Health. Source: macrumors