13 ms·

Covid-19 Rapid 15 minutes Test Kit

84 points by nreilly 7y ago

LeonB 7y ago
Look at the “our team” section. No one on the team has any medical or biological experience. If they did, I’d be researching them further and contacting them independently to verify. But there’s no one worth following up. Flagging this as a scam.
- LeonB 7y ago
  Further checking -- on BBC article from 2 days ago it says > Australian firm Rapidward said that five days ago it began supplying Covid-19 blood tests direct from China to Switzerland" ...meaning 7 days ago. But company "RapidWard" was only registered in Australia in the last 1 or 2 days: https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970 https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970 That article also says: > it is registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK This is easily checked: https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search-registry/?q=rapidward.com https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search-registry... > 0 results found.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    ... and rapidward.com was created on 17th March using DomainbyProxy/goDaddy: >Raw Whois Data Domain Name: rapidward.com Registry Domain ID: 2504220709_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com http://www.godaddy.com Updated Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z Creation Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-03-17T05:43:49Z Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC ... Registrant Name: Registration Private Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road Registrant City: Scottsdale Registrant State/Province: Arizona Registrant Postal Code: 85260 Registrant Country: US
zmmmmm 7y ago
I really wish people would develop some terminology to differentiate b/w the antibody screen and the viral test. A cheap and rapid viral test would significantly change the course of the pandemic but this is not it.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  So because this tests for antibodies, are you saying someone could test positive, but it's because they got it like a month ago? (e.g. this is more similar to those tests you have to take before you start at a hospital; so they can see what booster vaccines you need?)
  - derision 7y ago
    Yes
  - wmf 7y ago
    Also because by the time someone has antibodies they've already spread it to other people?
    - zmmmmm 7y ago
      Yep, the fundamental problem is that the antibody test only triggers positive well after you would already be infectious probably for days, and most likely symptomatic already at least. So it can't curtail the outbreak, though as others are pointing out it can be very useful to clear people after they are infected.
      - grogenaut 7y ago
        Just knowing: "yeah you caught it and recovered, get back out there, you're low risk" would be super helpful. Would allow you to go volunteer at a minimum.
- ckemere 7y ago
  Confused, their "ultra" test is detecting the spike glycoprotein, which is a test for infection, no? (And the antibody test is also useful to figure out which nurses/docs are safe to send back in?)
djsumdog 7y ago
There was another thread about someone at a University making a testing kid and there were replies of scientists explaining all the materials needed. My question about these. This one specifically says it tests for "COVID-19 IgM / IgG" anti-bodies. Could these kits also test positive for other non-SARS-cov2 Coronaviruses in the family, or are they accurate enough they only test for SARS-cov2?
bionhoward 7y ago
One suggestion: put figure 1A from the test kit study on your page in huge / reactive size. Many stakeholders concern themselves with the mechanism of the test — if you make it easy for them to know how it works, then they’re more likely to buy. Way to go
MuffinFlavored 7y ago
What material/chemical is on the test kit cotton swab that can determine if you Covid-19 based on a saliva sample? How does that work?
RapidWard 7y ago
Hi all, Real quick response. The tests are designed to only test for SARS-CoV-2, we've trialed them against other coronaviruses and common viruses in general. Will differentiate. Will reveal tech on swab, but it's not the swab itself, it's combined with a reactive reagent in the kit to show clear results. Test differentiation is clear to medical professionals, but perhaps not general public, this product is only to support professionals. We are in development of a cheap and rapid antigen test that can detect ASAP before symptoms and buys us a few days headstart. It's coming. Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a viral load post recovery in many cases and this should be a clear enough reason for that person to enter isolation of some description. Working the hardest with what we have and will keep moving forward. Thanks for your interest and support!
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  Has the Australian government ordered any kits? I did the nasal swab test when I got tested and it was very painful.
  - anonsubmit2671 7y ago
    That's the rtPCR expensive test for early detection. Self-swab of the front of the nose is now possible without a nasopharyngeal swab. A 15 minute test cannot possibly do rtPCR which takes 45 minutes minimum, so this could only be an antibody test for who has recovered or is recovering. It's totally worthless in a clinical setting.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a viral load post recovery in many cases Any hard data on how long this is the case?
  - tyfon 7y ago
    In Norway if you have symptoms but not been tested you are allowed in the shops and work again one day after symptoms subside as "the chance of infecting someone drops drastically at the end of the infection" [1]. If you have a positive test you still have to stay in for seven days but they don't tell you why since the argument for the non-tested should also apply to the ones with a positive test. However there is no hard data here but I think these anti-body tests are better for statistics than prevention. Maybe you could even get a "corona passport" so that when you have had it and become immune you have more freedom. [1] https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer-som-er-smittet-eller-har-vart-utsatt-for-smitte/rad-til-deg-som-har-symptomer-pa-akutt-luftveisinfeksjon/ https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer-som-... (Norwegian)
shp0ngle 7y ago
Oh yes, TechCrunch and Yahoo! News, the high standard of medical test reporting
yters 7y ago
If we have the virus dna, why can't we just have a pcr or similar kit to home test a swab? Someone can make their own pcr for $25 and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars. I don't understand why cov2 testing is so difficult.
- mynegation 7y ago
  > Someone can make their own pcr for $25 Ok > and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars. Please tell us more
  - yters 7y ago
    then prepare a sample from a swab and see if the cov2 segments bind with dna from the swab
    - mynegation 7y ago
      What I meant is that I agree that one can build a simple thermal cycler (I doubt it can be done for $25 but does not matter). I know how PCR works, what I do not understand is the claim of synthesizing reagents at home, especially template and primers.
      - yters 7y ago
        yes synthesizing cannot be done at home, but companies can do custom synthsizing for relatively cheap, a couple hundred dollars for a short segment
pdm55 7y ago
COVID-19 diagnostic tests included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for legal supply in Australia https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included-artg-legal-supply-australia https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included-ar... Advice re Legal supply of COVID-19 diagnostic tests in Australia https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic-tests https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic-test...
- teapot01 7y ago
  The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia, and is unlikely to be approved for self-test use. Quote from TGA: "NOTE: In Australia, the supply of self-tests for most serious infectious diseases, including self-tests for COVID-19, is prohibited under the Therapeutic Goods (Excluded Purposes) Specification 2010. Testing for serious infectious diseases is best conducted in conjunction with a healthcare professional who can provide appropriate advice and treatment if required."
  - ImaCake 7y ago
    >The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia I can see it right there in the table. So it's definitely approved. On the self-test bit, of course not, even the manufacturer stresses this is for professionals to use. Not lay people.
Animats 7y ago
There are many companies coming out with antibody test kits. They're useful, but not for diagnosis. They're for telling who's had the disease and is probably now immune. Virus negative and antibody positive should indicate that someone is no longer infected, now protected, and need no longer isolate. Hopefully.
- ImaCake 7y ago
  My limited understanding of this is that IgM antibodies appear against viral infections quite early in the infection. So this could still be useful for identifying people with active infections. Correct me if I am wrong!
ImaCake 7y ago
Can someone more experienced with clinical work give their thoughts on the sensitivity and accuracy of this test? The group's paper reports: >sensitivity was 88.66% and specificity was 90.63% My understanding is that this test will miss 12 in every 100 covid-19 infected individuals, and it will return a false positive for 10 in every 100 patients. My intuition says this is more than acceptable for a rapid test. But I would love to see the opinion of someone with some clinical experience.
- hn23 7y ago
  Would a false positive bad in this situation if social distancing is required? False negative would be more bad or am I missing something?
  - zenexer 7y ago
    A 10% false positive rate for just about any test would render it mostly useless (see above).
    - chr1 7y ago
      The alternative of everyone staying at home has 100% false positive rate, so 10% is a huge improvement, not useless.
      - zenexer 7y ago
        Remember, there’s probably a similarly high false negative rate. Also, take into account the number of people who won’t be going home, but will instead be flooding into ERs. If you want to cause true mass hysteria and quickly overwhelm our already strained medical infrastructure, tell 10% of the population that that have SARS-CoV-2. You need to stay home. There’s no way around it—certainly not for $20.
- zenexer 7y ago
  I don't think the quote you provided says anything about false positives; at least, I really hope it doesn't. A 10% false positive rate would be ridiculous. If 0.1% of the population has SARS-CoV-2, a test has a 10% false positive rate, and you get a positive result on that test, you only have about a 1% chance of actually being infected. That's a little unintuitive, but here's how it breaks down, without taking into account false negatives: * 10% of the population will receive a false positive * 0.1% of the population will receive a true positive Which category are you more likely to fall into--10% of the population or 0.1%? You're 100 times more likely to fall into the false positive category.
BLanen 7y ago
Antibody tests are not what we need now. What we need are PCR tests... There is literally NOTHING to be found about "rapidward" before 2 days ago. I'm very skeptical to your added value, and not just a middle man with a marketing team, I don't care that it's non-profit. You got 2 directors, a head of marketing, a head of Comms & PR, and a social media impact advocate...
TTPrograms 7y ago
Why does this company sell N95 masks as well? For a company selling 3 products that's a strange combination - unless this company is just some sort of distributor. In the latter case, why is this news?
- mike_d 7y ago
  Because they are trying to scam people. If you contact them they will give you a price quote and an overseas account to wire money to.
flear 7y ago
This looks again like scam. A few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946
- zenexer 7y ago
  Yup. Two days ago I received an email from someone asking to advertise hxxp://www.masktouch[.]com/ on our site. Compare the masks on there to the masks on the site posted here--they're nearly identical. Compare the source code--same style, similar comments. Even the red buttons on the sites are similar. I went through all the "certification" docs on both sites. I found nothing that actually certified either of them for anything. Anything that would've been remotely meaningful was censored (blurred). If I'm making incorrect assumptions based on circumstantial evidence, what choice do I have? There's nothing on these sites substantiating their claims. If this is legitimate, you need to publish a complete paper trail that readers here can verify. Edit: To clarify: Calling it a "scam" might be a bit harsh, but it's definitely misleading. There's nothing special about these tests, and there's a reason they're cheap and not in widespread use--they're not going to do what most people expect. This post sums it up nicely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421 All these sites are probably just dropshipping the same items from the same factories at heavy markups.
ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
This is probably a scam, but I'm on the look out for the reason why the market went up like this this week. It's either the typical bounce, or there is some information to come that insider traders moved on.
Cantbekhan 7y ago
A small Belgian company has developed a very similar test kit. Its test is also claiming a result in 15 mins with around 60% sensivity. The test in question has been fast tracked and approved by European regulations. Here is their product sheet: https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS-COVID-19_20200324.pdf https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS-COVID-19_20200324... Here is their page: https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human-Field/Covid-19.php https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human-Field/Covid-19.php It seems to be quite similar but on this one you can see their test results and how effective it is. Evaluation 1(n=99),95%,confidence interval: -Sensitivity,60%,(40.7 to 76,8%) -Sensitivity threshold,85.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(62.6 to 96.2%) -Specificity,100%,(93.4 to 100%) -Positive predictive value,100%,(78.1 to 100%) -Negative predictive value,85.2%,(75.2 to 91.8%) -Agreement,87.9%(87/99) Evaluation 1(n=1 32),95%,confidence interval: -Sensitivity,60.3%,(48.1 to 71.3%) -Sensitivity threshold,76.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(61 to 87.7%) -Specificity,98.3%,(89.7 to 99.9%) -Positive predictive value,97.8%,(86.8 to 99.9%) -Negative predictive value,66.7%,(55.7 to 76.2%) -Agreement 77.3%(102/132) It was developed by the ULB university in Brussels. It has been tested on 250 patients in two of Belgian's main university hospitals. https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/102707/coronavirus-belgium-develops-15-minute-virus-test/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/1027... This company seems to have a history of producing such tests (for Ebola, Influenza and other pathogens) and there are numerous pubmed publications about them...
anonsubmit2671 7y ago
There's been a cheap, 10 minute antibody (ELISA?) test kit from SureScreen for sometime. It only works after someone develops antibodies. For initial infection, rtPCR is the gold standard and takes at least 45 minutes as of writing. https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus-rapid-test-cassette https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus-rap...
rasz 7y ago
Chinese Bioeasy also offers those, Spain and Poland tried using them, instead of 80% sensitivity its more like 20-30%. Works if you are willing to burn 5 tests per person.

84 points by nreilly 7y ago

Look at the “our team” section. No one on the team has any medical or biological experience. If they did, I’d be researching them further and contacting them independently to verify. But there’s no one worth following up. Flagging this as a scam.

LeonB 7y ago
Further checking -- on BBC article from 2 days ago it says > Australian firm Rapidward said that five days ago it began supplying Covid-19 blood tests direct from China to Switzerland" ...meaning 7 days ago. But company "RapidWard" was only registered in Australia in the last 1 or 2 days: https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970 https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=67639947970 That article also says: > it is registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK This is easily checked: https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search-registry/?q=rapidward.com https://medicine-seller-register.mhra.gov.uk/search-registry... > 0 results found.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  ... and rapidward.com was created on 17th March using DomainbyProxy/goDaddy: >Raw Whois Data Domain Name: rapidward.com Registry Domain ID: 2504220709_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com http://www.godaddy.com Updated Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z Creation Date: 2020-03-17T05:43:49Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-03-17T05:43:49Z Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC ... Registrant Name: Registration Private Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road Registrant City: Scottsdale Registrant State/Province: Arizona Registrant Postal Code: 85260 Registrant Country: US

zmmmmm 7y ago

I really wish people would develop some terminology to differentiate b/w the antibody screen and the viral test. A cheap and rapid viral test would significantly change the course of the pandemic but this is not it.

djsumdog 7y ago
So because this tests for antibodies, are you saying someone could test positive, but it's because they got it like a month ago? (e.g. this is more similar to those tests you have to take before you start at a hospital; so they can see what booster vaccines you need?)
- derision 7y ago
  Yes
- wmf 7y ago
  Also because by the time someone has antibodies they've already spread it to other people?
  - zmmmmm 7y ago
    Yep, the fundamental problem is that the antibody test only triggers positive well after you would already be infectious probably for days, and most likely symptomatic already at least. So it can't curtail the outbreak, though as others are pointing out it can be very useful to clear people after they are infected.
    - grogenaut 7y ago
      Just knowing: "yeah you caught it and recovered, get back out there, you're low risk" would be super helpful. Would allow you to go volunteer at a minimum.
ckemere 7y ago
Confused, their "ultra" test is detecting the spike glycoprotein, which is a test for infection, no? (And the antibody test is also useful to figure out which nurses/docs are safe to send back in?)

djsumdog 7y ago

There was another thread about someone at a University making a testing kid and there were replies of scientists explaining all the materials needed. My question about these. This one specifically says it tests for "COVID-19 IgM / IgG" anti-bodies. Could these kits also test positive for other non-SARS-cov2 Coronaviruses in the family, or are they accurate enough they only test for SARS-cov2?

bionhoward 7y ago

One suggestion: put figure 1A from the test kit study on your page in huge / reactive size. Many stakeholders concern themselves with the mechanism of the test — if you make it easy for them to know how it works, then they’re more likely to buy. Way to go

MuffinFlavored 7y ago

What material/chemical is on the test kit cotton swab that can determine if you Covid-19 based on a saliva sample? How does that work?

RapidWard 7y ago

Hi all, Real quick response. The tests are designed to only test for SARS-CoV-2, we've trialed them against other coronaviruses and common viruses in general. Will differentiate. Will reveal tech on swab, but it's not the swab itself, it's combined with a reactive reagent in the kit to show clear results. Test differentiation is clear to medical professionals, but perhaps not general public, this product is only to support professionals. We are in development of a cheap and rapid antigen test that can detect ASAP before symptoms and buys us a few days headstart. It's coming. Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a viral load post recovery in many cases and this should be a clear enough reason for that person to enter isolation of some description. Working the hardest with what we have and will keep moving forward. Thanks for your interest and support!

tomlockwood 7y ago
Has the Australian government ordered any kits? I did the nasal swab test when I got tested and it was very painful.
- anonsubmit2671 7y ago
  That's the rtPCR expensive test for early detection. Self-swab of the front of the nose is now possible without a nasopharyngeal swab. A 15 minute test cannot possibly do rtPCR which takes 45 minutes minimum, so this could only be an antibody test for who has recovered or is recovering. It's totally worthless in a clinical setting.
jacquesm 7y ago
> Testing for antibodies is still very important as people continue to shed a viral load post recovery in many cases Any hard data on how long this is the case?
- tyfon 7y ago
  In Norway if you have symptoms but not been tested you are allowed in the shops and work again one day after symptoms subside as "the chance of infecting someone drops drastically at the end of the infection" [1]. If you have a positive test you still have to stay in for seven days but they don't tell you why since the argument for the non-tested should also apply to the ones with a positive test. However there is no hard data here but I think these anti-body tests are better for statistics than prevention. Maybe you could even get a "corona passport" so that when you have had it and become immune you have more freedom. [1] https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer-som-er-smittet-eller-har-vart-utsatt-for-smitte/rad-til-deg-som-har-symptomer-pa-akutt-luftveisinfeksjon/ https://www.fhi.no/nettpub/coronavirus/rad-til-personer-som-... (Norwegian)

shp0ngle 7y ago

Oh yes, TechCrunch and Yahoo! News, the high standard of medical test reporting

yters 7y ago

If we have the virus dna, why can't we just have a pcr or similar kit to home test a swab? Someone can make their own pcr for $25 and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars. I don't understand why cov2 testing is so difficult.

mynegation 7y ago
> Someone can make their own pcr for $25 Ok > and synthesize significant segments of cov2 for a couple hundred dollars. Please tell us more
- yters 7y ago
  then prepare a sample from a swab and see if the cov2 segments bind with dna from the swab
  - mynegation 7y ago
    What I meant is that I agree that one can build a simple thermal cycler (I doubt it can be done for $25 but does not matter). I know how PCR works, what I do not understand is the claim of synthesizing reagents at home, especially template and primers.
    - yters 7y ago
      yes synthesizing cannot be done at home, but companies can do custom synthsizing for relatively cheap, a couple hundred dollars for a short segment

pdm55 7y ago

COVID-19 diagnostic tests included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for legal supply in Australia https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included-artg-legal-supply-australia https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-diagnostic-tests-included-ar... Advice re Legal supply of COVID-19 diagnostic tests in Australia https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic-tests https://www.tga.gov.au/legal-supply-covid-19-diagnostic-test...

teapot01 7y ago
The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia, and is unlikely to be approved for self-test use. Quote from TGA: "NOTE: In Australia, the supply of self-tests for most serious infectious diseases, including self-tests for COVID-19, is prohibited under the Therapeutic Goods (Excluded Purposes) Specification 2010. Testing for serious infectious diseases is best conducted in conjunction with a healthcare professional who can provide appropriate advice and treatment if required."
- ImaCake 7y ago
  >The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia I can see it right there in the table. So it's definitely approved. On the self-test bit, of course not, even the manufacturer stresses this is for professionals to use. Not lay people.

Animats 7y ago

There are many companies coming out with antibody test kits. They're useful, but not for diagnosis. They're for telling who's had the disease and is probably now immune. Virus negative and antibody positive should indicate that someone is no longer infected, now protected, and need no longer isolate. Hopefully.

ImaCake 7y ago
My limited understanding of this is that IgM antibodies appear against viral infections quite early in the infection. So this could still be useful for identifying people with active infections. Correct me if I am wrong!

ImaCake 7y ago

Can someone more experienced with clinical work give their thoughts on the sensitivity and accuracy of this test? The group's paper reports: >sensitivity was 88.66% and specificity was 90.63% My understanding is that this test will miss 12 in every 100 covid-19 infected individuals, and it will return a false positive for 10 in every 100 patients. My intuition says this is more than acceptable for a rapid test. But I would love to see the opinion of someone with some clinical experience.

hn23 7y ago
Would a false positive bad in this situation if social distancing is required? False negative would be more bad or am I missing something?
- zenexer 7y ago
  A 10% false positive rate for just about any test would render it mostly useless (see above).
  - chr1 7y ago
    The alternative of everyone staying at home has 100% false positive rate, so 10% is a huge improvement, not useless.
    - zenexer 7y ago
      Remember, there’s probably a similarly high false negative rate. Also, take into account the number of people who won’t be going home, but will instead be flooding into ERs. If you want to cause true mass hysteria and quickly overwhelm our already strained medical infrastructure, tell 10% of the population that that have SARS-CoV-2. You need to stay home. There’s no way around it—certainly not for $20.
zenexer 7y ago
I don't think the quote you provided says anything about false positives; at least, I really hope it doesn't. A 10% false positive rate would be ridiculous. If 0.1% of the population has SARS-CoV-2, a test has a 10% false positive rate, and you get a positive result on that test, you only have about a 1% chance of actually being infected. That's a little unintuitive, but here's how it breaks down, without taking into account false negatives: * 10% of the population will receive a false positive * 0.1% of the population will receive a true positive Which category are you more likely to fall into--10% of the population or 0.1%? You're 100 times more likely to fall into the false positive category.

BLanen 7y ago

Antibody tests are not what we need now. What we need are PCR tests... There is literally NOTHING to be found about "rapidward" before 2 days ago. I'm very skeptical to your added value, and not just a middle man with a marketing team, I don't care that it's non-profit. You got 2 directors, a head of marketing, a head of Comms & PR, and a social media impact advocate...

TTPrograms 7y ago

Why does this company sell N95 masks as well? For a company selling 3 products that's a strange combination - unless this company is just some sort of distributor. In the latter case, why is this news?

mike_d 7y ago
Because they are trying to scam people. If you contact them they will give you a price quote and an overseas account to wire money to.

flear 7y ago

This looks again like scam. A few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22641946

zenexer 7y ago
Yup. Two days ago I received an email from someone asking to advertise hxxp://www.masktouch[.]com/ on our site. Compare the masks on there to the masks on the site posted here--they're nearly identical. Compare the source code--same style, similar comments. Even the red buttons on the sites are similar. I went through all the "certification" docs on both sites. I found nothing that actually certified either of them for anything. Anything that would've been remotely meaningful was censored (blurred). If I'm making incorrect assumptions based on circumstantial evidence, what choice do I have? There's nothing on these sites substantiating their claims. If this is legitimate, you need to publish a complete paper trail that readers here can verify. Edit: To clarify: Calling it a "scam" might be a bit harsh, but it's definitely misleading. There's nothing special about these tests, and there's a reason they're cheap and not in widespread use--they're not going to do what most people expect. This post sums it up nicely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22642421 All these sites are probably just dropshipping the same items from the same factories at heavy markups.

ccktlmazeltov 7y ago

This is probably a scam, but I'm on the look out for the reason why the market went up like this this week. It's either the typical bounce, or there is some information to come that insider traders moved on.

Cantbekhan 7y ago

A small Belgian company has developed a very similar test kit. Its test is also claiming a result in 15 mins with around 60% sensivity. The test in question has been fast tracked and approved by European regulations. Here is their product sheet: https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS-COVID-19_20200324.pdf https://www.corisbio.com/pdf/Products/SARS-COVID-19_20200324... Here is their page: https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human-Field/Covid-19.php https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human-Field/Covid-19.php It seems to be quite similar but on this one you can see their test results and how effective it is. Evaluation 1(n=99),95%,confidence interval: -Sensitivity,60%,(40.7 to 76,8%) -Sensitivity threshold,85.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(62.6 to 96.2%) -Specificity,100%,(93.4 to 100%) -Positive predictive value,100%,(78.1 to 100%) -Negative predictive value,85.2%,(75.2 to 91.8%) -Agreement,87.9%(87/99) Evaluation 1(n=1 32),95%,confidence interval: -Sensitivity,60.3%,(48.1 to 71.3%) -Sensitivity threshold,76.7%,on sampling with CT under 25(61 to 87.7%) -Specificity,98.3%,(89.7 to 99.9%) -Positive predictive value,97.8%,(86.8 to 99.9%) -Negative predictive value,66.7%,(55.7 to 76.2%) -Agreement 77.3%(102/132) It was developed by the ULB university in Brussels. It has been tested on 250 patients in two of Belgian's main university hospitals. https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/102707/coronavirus-belgium-develops-15-minute-virus-test/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/1027... This company seems to have a history of producing such tests (for Ebola, Influenza and other pathogens) and there are numerous pubmed publications about them...

anonsubmit2671 7y ago

There's been a cheap, 10 minute antibody (ELISA?) test kit from SureScreen for sometime. It only works after someone develops antibodies. For initial infection, rtPCR is the gold standard and takes at least 45 minutes as of writing. https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus-rapid-test-cassette https://www.surescreen.com/products/covid-19-coronavirus-rap...

rasz 7y ago

Chinese Bioeasy also offers those, Spain and Poland tried using them, instead of 80% sensitivity its more like 20-30%. Works if you are willing to burn 5 tests per person.