There ’ s Now a Rapid, Accurate COVID-19 Air Detector

The COVID-19 pandemic will forever be associated with unprecedented lockdowns and inconveniences such as wearing masks in public. And that’s largely because health experts had no idea exactly where the SARS-CoV-2 virus was lurking, and how risky crowded settings such as workplaces, classrooms, and public transportation were. But what if an easy-to-use, mobile device could detect, in real time, SARS-CoV-2 in a given space? That would give people confidence to go maskless, if no virus were floating around, or take precautions like wearing a mask or avoid the setting altogether if the virus was detected. Researchers at Washington University St. Louis report in Nature Communications that they have done just that, with a prototype device about the size of a microwave that can pick up signs of SARS-CoV-2 in about five minutes. Led by Rajan Chakrabarty, associate professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering, the team wanted to improve on the cumbersome process of relying on commercial air detectors that can only sample air and require additional PCR testing of the samples that can take as long as 24 hours to return results. The devices are also costly, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per unit. After three years, they have developed a device that they say performs even better than the commercial methods in lab testing, and could be scaled to cost a few cents per test. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] More from TIME [video id=k...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news