OPINION:
Some commentators have claimed that "ill-informed" businesspeople such as myself are advocating the use of rapid antigen tests in place of the PCR test. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To date, I have refrained from outlining the work I have put into learning everything I can
about Covid. It is a process that I began back in September last year with the full support of my team at Animation Research Ltd have freed me from my day job to do this.
In that time, I have learned from experts about "reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)" and how they compare with "reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP)." Simply put, both are molecular methods that use amplification to achieve a highly accurate test result which is different from antigen tests that do not use amplification.
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I have read studies that have concluded that "RT-LAMP has comparable diagnostic accuracy as RT-qPCR," and "… RT – LAMP can be used as an alternative to PCR in the acute symptomatic phase of Covid-19."
I have seen first-hand how a LAMP test like offered by a company called Lucira Health can reduce the time and cost for getting a result down to 30 minutes rather than the 78 hours it took for my last PCR test that cost almost $300.
I have also learned that, despite the fact that countries like Canada, the US, Israel, Taiwan and Singapore have all approved the use of the Lucira LAMP test for a variety of applications including as a pre-flight test, the official government Covid website specifically excludes LAMP tests that could give an FDA approved result up to an hour before boarding rather than the 48 hours that has been allowed for the government-mandated PCR test that is currently the only option in place to protect our borders, before people fly in.
Over the weekend I have witnessed first-hand the speed at which businesses can move when there is a problem to be solved or an opportunity to make change.
After a call I took from executives at Lucira Health in the USA on Friday steps have already been put in place to provide 2,000 free LAMP diagnostic kits to the Tongan government to use in any way they see fit as a tool to help keep their borders safe as rescue workers fly in from countries with Omicron. What is unique about the Lucira test as it relates to the Tongan relief effort is that as an all-in-one kit, (no additional equipment or training required) it can enable testing and provide PCR quality results anywhere by anyone in 30 minutes or less. Lucira Health, whose goal is to ensure the Tongan people receive aid safely and quickly would then prioritise further tests if needed. That's a process that took less than 12 hours. Let's see how fast government officials can move.
On Thursday in a conference call with Dr Bloomfield I offered to put him in contact with a company, Kudu Spectrum that had been trying for weeks to get a response to an offer to guarantee delivery of one of the top 3 Rapid Antigen tests in the world, a RAT called Orient gene. Given the huge demand on RAT's globally it simply did not make sense that no one had replied to an offer that would see these tests provided to the New Zealand government at $5.20 each, with the price being lower for orders of 1 million and above.
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