The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with the University of Washington to develop home test kits for the novel coronavirus to people in the Seattle area.
This would allow people who suspect they have COVID-19 to be tested without exposing healthcare workers or others in a doctor’s office .
First you have to fill out a questionnaire
To access the kit, you would first need to complete a detailed online questionnaire . If symptoms were consistent, then a home test kit would be received in just two hours. The results would be available within two days and would be sent directly to local health officials.
The Seattle-based Gates Foundation has already donated $ 100 million to public health authorities around the world to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. King County, which includes Seattle, has the largest known outbreak of the virus in the United States .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created a test for the new coronavirus shortly after the outbreak began in China, but contamination in one element of the test delayed its use in labs across the country .
Also, for weeks, the CDC only recommended testing for sick people who had been in a country with a continuing spread of the virus or who had been in contact with someone with a confirmed case of the disease.
Because of those restrictions, the virus went undetected for a week in two people who died in Seattle .
Bill Gates is a co-founder of the Gates Foundation with his wife Melinda Gates , and since its inception in 2000 it has grown into the largest philanthropic organization in the world. In 2012, for example, he donated more than $ 3 billion.