Raising hopes just for the sake of raising hopes is not where I am, though, and in fact I find that whole idea to be cruel. We’re going to defeat this virus, this epidemic, by being as hard-nosed as we can be about collecting real data on real-world outcomes as quickly as efficiently as we can, not by talking vaguely about miracle cures and isn’t it something and wouldn’t it be great. You’ll need to go somewhere else for that. Try Dr. Oz, he’s good at that crap. I’ll stick to what I’m good at here.

One of the reasons for the current supply shortage, she said: “We’ve allowed our own national capacity to manufacture things to degrade and in some places go away. And we’ve done that for cost-efficiency sake.”

She later added: “What we need is not a big stockpile. We need a new strategy. We need to use the technologies we have now to create the capacity to respond to something in close to real-time.”

That means being able to “rapidly design and manufacture what we need, when we need it, and the quantities demanded,” she said.

...for use in the U.S. they will have to cleared by the FDA. Scanwell has applied to the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization, and the earliest the approval would come would likely be two months from now, according to Jeng.

How the tests work
Once a doctor from Scanwell partner telehealth company Lemonaid determines a patient's eligibility for the test, the test kit is sent via next business day delivery to the patient's home, said Jeng. The patient places the blood droplet on a test cassette. After 15 minutes, the results appear and the patient uploads an image to the Scanwell Health app. On the other end, a Lemonaid doctor or nurse practitioner will deliver the results in a few hours, said Jeng.