Mammoth Biosciences has developed a CRISPR-based COVID19 test, which can be conducted in 30 min, and is trying to expand to being available at the point of care. https://mammoth.bio/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Mammoth-Biosciences-A-protocol-for-rapid-detection-of-SARS-CoV-2-using-CRISPR-diagnostics-DETECTR.pdf …
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All of the reagents and devices necessary are listed in the link above and commercially available. The test is portable; you don't need a full lab to conduct it, just portable incubators, pipettes, and somewhere to keep reagents clean + cold.
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This protocol assumes you already have extracted RNA from the sample. RNA extraction kits are in short supply: there is only one approved manufacturer (Qiagen) though a second (Roche) has recently been approved.https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/rna-extraction-kits-for-covid-19-tests-are-in-short-supply-in-us-67250 …
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Even to qualify for the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization requires validation of the entire testing workflow. As I understand, it would be illegal (?) to test patients without an EAU.https://www.modernhealthcare.com/technology/labs-face-challenges-creating-diagnosis-testing-covid-19 …
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Sarah Constantin Retweeted Ian Quigley
So while, as Ian tweeted earlier, you don't need an RNA test kit to do an RNA extraction (https://twitter.com/allmeasures/status/1238089400296202243 …) if you gave patients a COVID-19 test based on the "old-fashioned" phenol/chloroform RNA extraction method, that wouldn't be automatically approved.
Sarah Constantin added,
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I'm struggling to figure out what would happen, concretely, to a doctor who tested patients with unapproved tests, or a laboratory that provided them. (Fines? Loss of license? what are the penalties here?)
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
If the blocker is simply someone willing to take on risk I will volunteer to go to jail in order to test people. No joke.
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Replying to @Ben_Reinhardt
That’s commendable, but not as useful as understanding what the enforcement landscape is like. If you test one person and go to jail immediately, you can’t help any more people. In a situation where medical personnel are already scarce, that’s bad.
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Successful civil disobedience requires both courage (which you’ve got, yay) and well-informed strategy (which I *don’t* have, hence my asking dumb questions on Twitter)
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