The Roaming BoomersTravel News: Home COVID-19 Testing
Travel News: Home COVID-19 Testing
In travel news, I wanted to share my experience home COVID-19 testing with the new Abbott Labs BinaxNow test.
As I mentioned in this article a few weeks ago, travel’s comeback is likely to be messy.
And one of the messes to be solved is rapid COVID-19 testing.
Our local drugstore has proven to be an efficient means to a COVID-19 test within three days. However, I thought I might try Abbott Lab’s new home test.
This test promises accurate testing at home with a result in 15-minutes. And then, the result is sent to the NAVICA app on your phone.
To obtain the home test, you must purchase six of the tests from eMed at the cost of $25 each.
I might add that the COVID-19 test from our local pharmacy is free of charge.
This test might be a handy tool for international travelers that need a COVID test to get back into the country. Or simply for convenience’s sake by being able to administer the test from home.
To administer the home test, download the NAVICA app to your smartphone and dial into eMed on a computer with the camera and microphone enabled.
Once connected, an eMed proctor guides you through the testing process and will stay with you until the test results are available.
And then, if all works as it should, a certificate with a scannable bar code will download into your NAVICA app.
Mr. Bill. Remember him from 70s-era SNL?
Oh No, Mr. Bill
Being able to obtain a COVID test from home is impressive.
However, I didn’t receive the results in my NAVICA app for four days!
That defeats the purpose of this “rapid” test. Right?
I called eMed to register my concern. As expected, I was connected with a nice lady from a different country. She couldn’t help me with my concerns and promised a call back from the right person.
We’ll see how that goes.
I suspect that they were swarmed with new testing requests and have a few bugs to work out in the system.
I will withhold judgment until I try the test again.
Update: our second test worked perfectly and we had the negative certificate immediately after the test was completed.
Share Your COVID-19 Home Testing Experience
How about you?
Do you have any experiences to share with home COVID testing? If so, please share your experience in the comments section below. Thanks!
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2 Comments on “Travel News: Home COVID-19 Testing”
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Is this the required pcr test?
If not, how would this help travelers ?
I think we have to keep in mind that this is all a moving train and don’t know where it will end. The travel industry and various countries are understandably interested in safety, first and foremost. And with that in mind, right now, the PCR is that standard. However, as the article linked above shares, this test’s effectiveness is very near PCR accuracy, and perhaps this will become acceptable soon. For now, as we can’t really travel much anyway, this is a handy test for personal use, and we’ll have to see how the travel brands respond to this test as it becomes more widely used. Here is a link to the article that I mentioned: https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2020-12-16-Abbotts-BinaxNOW-COVID-19-Rapid-Test-Receives-FDA-Emergency-Use-Authorization-for-First-Virtually-Guided-At-Home-Rapid-Test-Using-eMeds-Digital-Health-Platform.