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Back in July, Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers joked about the successful lack of coronavirus cases within the NBA Bubble, saying that the US Government could learn a thing or two.
“Maybe we should send our game plan to the White House,” Rivers said of the league’s diligence and commitment to safety. “They’ve done everything right as far as I’m concerned. When you think about that we’re running a village for the first time, the league is doing pretty well… But as far as our health, we have an app every morning that we have to do, wearing bands, facemasks.”
Now, it turns out that Rivers had a point and the FDA has decided to move forward with authorizing a saliva-based coronavirus test that was developed by Yale and funded by $500,000 from the NBA and National Basketball Players Association.
It’s been dubbed the SalivaDirect test and not only was it created for widespread public use but at $4 a test, it’ll likely cost around $20 for the general public. Although it’s could still be cheaper, other coronavirus saliva tests can go for as much as $150 and anything is better than the nasal cavity invading test. What makes it so much cheaper is that it skips the arduous and pricey step of extracting RNA from the samples.
The test, which has been developed at Rutgers also boasts that results can be given back with 24-48 hours of testing which makes for more effective quarantining measures.
With the successful testing results in the bubble, it’s time to use that method for all, to finally get a handle on the pandemic– and Nathan Grubaugh, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale is onboard.
“My goal is not to test athletes,” Grubaugh said. “That’s not my target population. My target population is everybody. There were concerns about partnering with the NBA when all these other people need testing. But the simple answer ended up being the NBA was going to do all this testing anyway, so why not partner with them and try to create something for everyone?”
