The White House on Thursday announced a deal with Abbott Laboratories to produce 150 million coronavirus test kits that will tell a person within 15 minutes if they have the COVID-19 virus.
“This is a major development that will help our country to remain open, get Americans back to work, and kids back to school!” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted late Thursday afternoon.
The test, which is the size of a credit card, would cost $5. It would be administered by a healthcare professional and is intended to be used by those who have experienced symptoms of the COVID-19 virus within the past seven days.
The test would require a nasal swab and the sample would then be applied to the card. Test results would be available within 15 minutes.
Abbott says the test can accurately detect 97% of COVID-19 positive cases.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the test called BinaxNOW.
Abbott says it intends to produce tens of millions of the tests in September then ramp up to 50 million test kits in October. The White House said the deal with Abbott was for $760 million.
The testing comes as an estimated 5.8 million Americans have been infected by the virus and more than 177,000 have died.
Cox Media Group
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