What they’re describing is an antigen test, not an antibody test. It tests directly for part of the virus, not an immune response, so it’s more a replacement fo

What they’re describing is an antigen test, not an antibody test. It tests directly for part of the virus, not an immune response, so it’s more a replacement for the existing PCR testing. That said, I have some serious doubts about the particular mechanism being used here being ready for $1/test within say the next year or two. It’s been studied for a few decades and while there has been some promising progress, this would be the first saliva viral antigen test using this technology. It seems a bit like trying to solve global warming by bringing fusion generators to market. I have doubts it will be deployable before a vaccine, let alone more conventional and boring antigen rapid diagnostic tests that we have developed for a wide array of viruses.