If you bother to read any articles about testing at Cleveland Clinic, you'll see this is BS.
There's no new kit - they just ordered the equipment used to do RT-PCR, i.e. ABI 7500 used in the CDC test kit.
They'll start testing patients, like, mid-April.
news5cleveland.com/news/continuin…
There's no new kit - they just ordered the equipment used to do RT-PCR, i.e. ABI 7500 used in the CDC test kit.
They'll start testing patients, like, mid-April.
news5cleveland.com/news/continuin…
I don't believe the ABI 7500 has a 384 well option, so each machine can run no more than 94-95 tests per run (assuming 2 controls per 96 well plate.
qPCR protocol takes ~3 hours, so if they're able to run multiple shifts, they can run 5-7 plates a day: ~450-630 tests per day.
qPCR protocol takes ~3 hours, so if they're able to run multiple shifts, they can run 5-7 plates a day: ~450-630 tests per day.
The equipment runs ~$50K per machine, so it's not as likely that facilities will get >1 up front.
These are prob. less prone to malfunction than ABI's capillary sequencers, which had down time every few days (and were hacked more than once, so keep them airgapped!)
These are prob. less prone to malfunction than ABI's capillary sequencers, which had down time every few days (and were hacked more than once, so keep them airgapped!)
Of course, that's better than NOTHING, which is what they have now, so they have to farm testing out to outside labs....
but it's not a new test.
It's not a panacea to the ineptitude of the Trump admin's failed response.
but it's not a new test.
It's not a panacea to the ineptitude of the Trump admin's failed response.
It's still susceptible to shortages in the CDC kits, the Qiagen extraction kits, and the other risks of requiring a single platform/vendor (IIRC, if you can hack one, you can take them all out, theoretically).
It's better than a 7 day turnaround. But it's not magic.
It's better than a 7 day turnaround. But it's not magic.
