AUSTIN, Texas — New coronavirus testing in Austin allows doctors to get results in a matter of minutes, instead of days.
A spokesperson for Victory Medical said they're one of the first clinics in the city to get this kind of testing. It’s called the Corona Check. Doctors will know if a patient tests positive for COVID-19 in just 10 minutes with the prick of a finger.
A doctor at the clinic told us this new coronavirus test is a game-changer. Dr. Katie Keller said nearly 500 of these tests came in from Maryland on Wednesday, April 8, and they’re already using them on patients.
How it works
The finger stick collects the patient’s blood and looks at the immune system's response to tell doctors whether their positive or negative for the coronavirus. Dr. Keller told us this is a lot better than the swab test they had before, which required them to wait days to get the lab results back.
“This is going to be much more accessible,” said Dr. Keller. “There’s going to be so many more tests and more coming that it’s going to allow us to get a bigger look at the course of the disease, what’s happening to the mild patients, what’s happening to those in the middle and severe. So, I think it’s, I mean, knowledge is power and this is going to be, this is more data and this is going to be helpful for us as clinicians.”
It will allow doctors to know who may have already been exposed and had the infection. It will also help them test more people.
Dr. Keller said the swab test was very limited. They only received a handful at a time and had to refuse people who didn’t show any symptoms. Now with the finger stick test, they’re getting them by the hundreds and so they can test those asymptomatic patients too.
“I think for a lot of people it’s going to ease some anxieties because there’s a lot of nerves around people wondering if they have it or if they’ve been exposed to it and, I mean, anyone can do this test and find out if they may have already had it,” said Dr. Keller.
This new test is now available at all three of the Victory Medical clinics.
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