US OKs 1st coronavirus test that allows self-swab at home
By MATTHEW PERRONE
2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators on Tuesday OK’d the first coronavirus test that allows people to collect their own sample at home, a new approach that could help expand testing options in most states.
The test from LabCorp will initially only be available to health care workers and first responders under a doctor’s orders. The sample will still have to be shipped for processing back to LabCorp, which operates diagnostic labs throughout the U.S.
Allowing people to self-swab at home would help reduce infection risks for front-line health care workers and help conserve protective gear.
For the home test, people are initially screened with an online questionnaire. If authorized by a physician, LabCorp will ship a testing kit to their home. The kit includes cotton swabs, a collection tube, an insulated pouch, and a box to ship the specimen back to LabCorp. To take a sample, a cotton swab is swirled in each nostril. The test results are posted online to a secure company website.
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The company said it will make the test available in the coming weeks. Each kit will cost $119. The kits will not be available in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Those states have laws prohibiting testing with at-home kits.
Initially, the Food and Drug Administration required health care workers wearing masks, gloves and other protective gear to collect all samples from potential coronavirus patients, usually by sticking a long swab down the nose or throat.
More recently, the FDA has endorsed the self-swab method. LabCorp’s test is the first that allows it to be done at home without supervision.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement the agency authorized the self-swab test based on data showing it is “as safe and accurate as sample collection at a doctor’s office, hospital or other testing sites.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
According to Jn 15:12, when Jesus gave us His commandment to “love one another, as I have loved you,” He gave us His example to follow. In the next three verses, He shows us the kind of love we are supposed to have for one another. We are to love one another with:
Sacrificial love – Jn 15:13 – He laid down His life for us. As a matter of fact, He laid down His life for all men, Rom 5:6-10. However, we are to love those sacrificially who are our friends. In Rom 16:3-4, Paul said of Priscilla and Aquila, “who have for my life laid down their own necks.” And in Eph 5:25, husbands are told to love their wives “as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it.” Man, if you aren’t willing to lay down your life for her you have no business marrying her.
Selective love – Jn 15:14 – You are My friends if you do whatsoever I command you. The Pharisees didn’t do what Jesus commanded them, i.e., Jn 6:29 believe, and He wasn’t their friend, as you can plainly see in Matt 23. He was, instead, a friend of publicans and sinners, Matt 11:19, because they did what He commanded them, Matt 21:28-32. So, we should love whom Jesus loves and not love whom He does not love. For instance, John wrote 1 Jn 2:15-17 and James wrote Jas 4:4 to direct us in our love. We should love those who love Jesus enough to keep His commandments, Jn 14:15.
Scriptural love – Jn 15:15 – Jesus said of His friends, “all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” In Jn 16:12-14, that’s what the Holy Spirit does for us. This really refines the group you love the most. These are the true Bible believers. Jesus showed things to Peter, James, and John (i.e., the transfiguration, Matt 17:1-9) that he didn’t show the rest of his disciples. And He showed things to John, the disciple whom He loved, (Jn 13:23-26, Lord, who is it?) that He didn’t show the rest of the disciples. John was to whom He was given the Revelation.
When Jesus told us to love one another, as I have loved you, He gave us his perfect example to follow, so we would know how to do this. We must be willing to lay down our lives for our friends. Jesus doesn’t expect us to love everybody, but He does tell us to love those who are obedient to His commands. And the ones we will love the most are the ones who love His words the most. – Our Savior’s commandment to love one another as He loves us is probably our greatest challenge. I pray that we can try to show love in all we do.
“The man who wishes to know the “that” which is “thou” may set to work in any one of three ways. He may begin by looking inwards into his own particular thou and, by a process of “dying to self” — self in reasoning, self in willing, self in feeling — come at last to the knowledge of the self, the kingdom of the self, the kingdom of God that is within. Or else he may begin with the thous existing outside himself and may try to realize their essential unity with God and, through God, with one another and with his own being. Or, finally (and this is doubtless the best way), he may seek to approach the ultimate That both from within and from without, so that he comes to realize God experimentally as at once the principle of his own thou and of all other thous, animate and inanimate.”Author: Aldous Huxley
