FDA Commissioner: At-Home COVID-19 Tests Just as Accurate as Others

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday that the recently authorized at-home test for the coronavirus is “as accurate as having it performed in the doctor’s office.”

Hahn said, “this new test is an at-home collection test for a diagnostic. That is, a test that would diagnose the presence of the COVID-19 virus,” and the company producing it, LabCorp, will focus first on getting it to healthcare workers and first responders working on the front lines of the outbreak.

Anyone experiencing symptoms of the virus can apply for a test by filling out a questionnaire online, which is reviewed by a licensed physician. If they find it to be “appropriate and consistent with the CDC guidelines, a package will be sent overnight with a swab and a tube” to the person who can perform the test on themselves. The person will then put a swab in a tube with saline “and overnight it back to the lab and then get the results thereafter from LabCorp.”

He added that the test is “very easy and safe to perform. Our data shows it's as accurate as having it performed in the doctor's office or in a clinic.”

Hahn said that the FDA is hard at work to expand testing capacity for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 820,000 people in the U.S., according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

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