Now that many people have started to step out of their cities and states in this COVID-19 pandemic world, many are being required to show negative RT-PCR tests to finally get entry to another state.?
And while RT-PCR tests don¡¯t involve a syringe, the process is equally, if not more, uncomfortable, to say the least.?
However, now a Dutch inventor has come up with a way to detect the presence of the novel coronavirus that¡¯s not as uncomfortable as the feeling of a long cotton swab being shoved into your nasal cavity. Instead, he just asks people to stand in an airlocked room and shout as loud as they want.
Reported first by Reuters, in this airlocked room, an industrial air purifier collected the particles released by the patient, which is then analysed further to find the presence of the novel coronavirus, if any.?
Developed by Van Wees, (in collaboration with private company Marshal Evidence) he set up a testing booth next to an actual COVID-19 testing centre near Amsterdam to test out its novel contraption. According to Van Wees, when a person shouts or sings, it releases a bunch of air droplets. An infection shows up as a cluster around the size of the coronavirus. This is detected with the help of a nanometre-scale sizing device and the entire process takes roughly around three minutes.?
Wees envisions this machine to come in handy as a screening tool at airports, concerts, schools and offices, to make sure that no COVID-19 positive individual enters in.?
Spokesman Geert Westerhuis of the Netherlands' National Institute for Health (RIVM), ( who wasn¡¯t involved in the project) said that the institution is looking at a variety of testing strategies, especially one that is a fast, functioning test with high accuracy.
Just last month, authorities in Amsterdam permitted the use of a test similar to an alcoholic breath analyser where the participant was asked to blow into a tube to detect the presence of novel coronavirus in their body if any. However, this same method hasn¡¯t yet been approved on a national level due to its concerns with false negatives.