With students and faculty scheduled to return in a few months, institutions are reaching out to secure testing to help keep the virus in check on campus.
Launched by both national labs and regional and specialty firms, the offerings provide testing as well as guidance on how to best structure testing programs.
High-profile groups have proposed population-scale testing as key to a safe reopening, but the test numbers they propose dwarf current and projected lab capacity.
Driven by increased demand for SARS-CoV-2 assays and a return of routine testing, the rise suggests that the industry could be moving toward a recovery.
A number of labs have said that not only are they able to fulfill all current PCR test requests, but that they are operating at below capacity for these tests.
Replacing nasopharyngeal swabs with saliva samples or nasal swabs could increase throughput and convenience, as well as relieve reagent and equipment shortages.
A number of labs and informatics firms are using test data to help guide the response to the virus in a spirit similar to that of initiatives like Lab 2.0.
