At-Home COVID-19 Tests: Demand Surges for Quidel QuickVue, Ellume and AccessBio CareStart Rapid Testing Kits

While government employees, students and the general public had to wait in line for hours in the beginning of the pandemic, at-home test kits make it easy to diagnose for the novel coronavirus in less than 30 minutes. The FDA is committed to providing as many bulk testing options to the public by quickly approving a number of at-home tests, starting with Abbott BinaxNow COVID-19 Antigen Self Tests followed by Quidel QuickVue kits, Ellume, InteliSwab, and the latest entrant AccessBio CareStart COVID test kits.

Demand Skyrockets

The easy-to-take tests are flying off store shelves, and for wholesale quantities required by organizations, there is a 1- to 3-week wait time for most tests. The delays are attributed to a perfect storm of demand amidst surging cases according to iPromo’s CEO and founder, Leo Friedman, “First, a number of COVID-19 test clinics shut down in the beginning of the summer as the pandemic was seemingly winding down, then schools and organizations made weekly COVID testing mandatory since the delta variant was increasing, and breaking through the vaccine, and finally test manufacturers infamously decreased their production capacities, with some even burning millions of unused tests. Our supply chain expertise is certainly being tested – thousands of our clients are requiring large quantities of tests, and we are shipping them as quickly as they get produced.”

Easy Testing Is Key

With at-home test accuracy rates hovering around 85 percent, most manufacturers are shipping the tests in two-packs and recommend taking the second test 1 to 3 days after the initial result. At an average of $25 per two-pack, the over-the-counter COVID-19tests have proven be a popular alternative to the more accurate PCR tests that do require an appointment and 24- to 72-hour wait time for results.

Difference Between Sensitivity and Specificity

In medical diagnosis, test sensitivity is the ability of a test to correctly identify those with the disease (true positive rate), whereas test specificity is the ability of the test to correctly identify those without the disease (true negative rate).

For example:

Abbott BinaxNow COVID-19 Antigen Self Test Kits

Sensitivity: 84.6% - PDF
Specificity: 98.5% - PDF

Quidel QuickVue At-Home COVID-19 At-Home Rapid Tests

Sensitivity: 84.8% -PDF
Specificity: 99.1% - PDF

About iPromo iPromo, established 1999, is an award winning distributor of personal protective equipment and branded merchandise, leveraging trusted manufacturers and sourcing relationships developed over 22 years in business. For more information, iPromo.com.