A new study from CU Boulder (my son’s alma mater) and Harvard’s TF Chan School of Public Health points to a way forward in the pandemic.

The study says

“These rapid tests are contagiousness tests,” said senior co-author Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “They are extremely effective in detecting COVID-19 when people are contagious.”

They are also affordable, he added. The rapid tests can cost as little as $1 each and return results in 15 minutes.

Best of all, “testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid-turnaround COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks.”

This is something we could do today to end the pandemic by Christmas. The FDA has already approved the tests.

For more information and some easy ways to get Congress off its butt visit rapidtests.org.

(NOTE FROM 2024: Yet another example of how the pandemic was mishandled. Due to foot dragging from the FDA, the tests weren’t in widespread use until 2022.)