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ORNL and UT partner to create new at-home COVID-19 test that works like a whistle

It doesn't require any poking or prodding. All you have to do is blow the whistle and your breath sample is captured inside.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Advances are being made in the fight against COVID-19 every day.

Now, a team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center are helping improve at-home testing. Instead of saliva or nasal swabs, this test is done with a simple breath of air. 

If you've gotten tested for COVID-19, you know the feeling of the swab, but now new technology is changing the game through a whistle. 

"I believe the best ideas are the simple ones that work," said UTHSC's Dr. Scott Strome. 

It's the first of its kind, an at-home COVID-19 test that only takes seconds. 

It doesn't require any poking or prodding. All you have to do is blow the whistle and your breath sample is captured inside.

To see whether you test positive or negative, you can either use an accompanying test kit or send it off to a lab. 

 "Our hope is that we can change the paradigm and this can shift over into other fields of use," Strome said.

It's one of the many initiatives to expand testing. 

The White House recently signed a contract to mass-produce a rapid at-home test. It would provide immediate results and give people results through their phones.

"We're doing many things better than we used to. We're taking care of patients better than we used to because we learned how to do that. We're testing more to determine who has the infection," said Dr. William Schaffner with Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 

He said rapid tests have the ability to be a game-changer continuing to help identify the coronavirus long before it has the ability to spread.

"We could use them in schools to test adults or children. Or if you have a cluster of infections and you're not sure what causes it, you could run in with that rapid test," said Schaffner. "I think expanding testing will help us individually and in a public health sense."

The breath-sampling whistle is still in clinical trials.

Doctors said if you're feeling unwell, don't rely on a particular test. It's best to take caution and self-isolate.

    

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