{"id":103874,"date":"2020-03-17T10:45:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T17:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/a-government-monopoly-led-to-botched-covid-19-test-kits-but-private-labs-are-now-saving-the-day"},"modified":"2020-03-17T10:45:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T17:45:24","slug":"a-government-monopoly-led-to-botched-covid-19-test-kits-but-private-labs-are-now-saving-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/a-government-monopoly-led-to-botched-covid-19-test-kits-but-private-labs-are-now-saving-the-day","title":{"rendered":"A Government Monopoly Led to Botched COVID-19 Test Kits, but Private Labs Are Now Saving the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-government-monopoly-led-to-botched-covid-19-test-kits-but-private-labs-are-now-saving-the-day.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Case in point: FDA rules initially prevented state and commercial labs from developing their own coronavirus diagnostic tests, even if they could develop coronavirus PCR [Polymerase chain reaction] primers on their own. So when the only available test suddenly turned out to be bunk, no one could actually say what primer sets worked.<\/p>\n<p>The government reversed course on February 29 and allowed private labs to begin developing their own tests. The results have been spectacular.<\/p>\n<p>The old tests <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/health\/article-8104803\/Top-hospital-Cleveland-Clinic-develops-coronavirus-test-deliver-results-EIGHT-HOURS.html\">took<\/a> two to seven days to process. The patient was left in limbo in the meantime. Within a matter of days of the government dropping its restriction, the Cleveland Clinic <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whio.com\/news\/local\/coronavirus-new-cleveland-clinic-testing-capabilities-deliver-results-within-hours\/\">developed<\/a> a test that delivered results within eight hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Case in point: FDA rules initially prevented state and commercial labs from developing their own coronavirus diagnostic tests, even if they could develop coronavirus PCR [Polymerase chain reaction] primers on their own. So when the only available test suddenly turned out to be bunk, no one could actually say what primer sets worked. The government [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":542,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1490],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}