Hold on! We might have Big Ten football after all.

[genxlib]

38. I am roughly familiar with your background

And I have the utmost respect and appreciation for your contribution around here. As an Engineer myself, I appreciate all efforts to keep it real when it comes to science and you are one of my favorites in that regard.

But I am not really sure I understand your reluctance on this matter.

Yes, it will take time for the test to react for a result but that is not the same thing as the time it takes to collect the sample and start the reaction. What they describe is a simple outer nasal cavity swab and shaking the swab in a solution. That sounds like something a tech could do in 30 seconds. So a single tech could do a lot of tests.

If multiple techs are needed, there is little doubt that the Big Ten would be willing to invest in that minimal cost if it meant the difference of playing or not playing. There are millions of dollars at stake in every single game so an extra few thousand dollars for testing would be an easy sell. Even if we take your time frame as the standard, they hire four more people and get that down to an hour. That is plenty quick enough considering the time a team spends in a locker room prior to a game.

And that assumes that they don't already have the necessary expertise to administer such an easy test. Every major college team already has Doctors and trainers on staff. The current approval for the test requires medical personnel but that seems likely to change. The test from Abbott is clearly developed to be easy enough to be self administered and targeted at the home use market. Even today, I was in a CVS and they are doing self-administered tests in the drive through. They hand you the kit, tell you to swab yourself, tell you to place it in the liquid vile and hand it back. Even that assumes nasal swabs. Some instant testing uses saliva sample in a spit tube.

I don't think the specimen collection is the issue. It has always been the delay between collection and result that prevents the instant testing.

I am excited about this because it isn't really about football at all. Testing that was rare and slow was the biggest problem we had back in the early months of this pandemic. It stands to reason that reversing that problem would be one of the major factors to move things in the right direction. Cheap, rapid and plentiful testing could return us to normal very quickly. You could have concerts, restaurants and bars if everyone was checked at the door. You could have schools if everyone was screened sufficiently. You could have businesses open if the workers were checked regularly. Most importantly, we could drive the R0 value down so far that the virus could peter out naturally.

While I am as cynical as the next guy about money in sports, this can work to our advantage. Universities are in a unique position of having very smart and innovative people while at the same time being very financially motivated to find a way to make things work. That combination of factors could lead to some exciting developments that can help all of us.