FDA authorizes two rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests in major move

Rapid testing advocates have been waiting a long time for a day like Wednesday, when late at night the Food and Drug Administration announced the authorization of two rapid at-home tests.

The authorizations of the Quidel QuickVue and Abbott BinaxNOW tests will allow people to swab themselves at home and get results in minutes. The Quidel test delivers results in 10 minutes and the Abbott test requires 15 minutes.

While the FDA has previously taken some steps toward authorizing at-home tests, advocates hailed the new authorizations as a major breakthrough because the tests are simple, do not require a prescription and can be mass-produced by two major companies to be widely available.

An Abbott spokesperson said the company has the ability to make “tens of millions per month.”

There’s been a months-long push on this issue: Michael Mina, a Harvard expert who has been pushing the FDA for months to do more to authorize simple, rapid tests, hailed the announcement on Twitter as “BIG NEWS!!”

“Simple, streamlined rapid tests will be available in US,” he wrote.