Street COVID-19 test vending machines to appear in New York
'19.01.2021'
Lyudmila Balabay
Home testing kits for COVID-19 will soon be sold through vending machines in major US cities, including New York. How much will they cost, and when the machines will appear in the metropolis, the publication said New York Post.
The network of machines is launched by the medical company Wellness 4 Humanity. According to her website, one such test will cost $ 149.
It is not cheap, but it is a significant step forward since the beginning of the pandemic, when, due to the lack of tests for coronavirus, they were extremely difficult to find, which is why many could not check what they were sick with.
The vending machines, due this month in major US cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Dallas, will sell an emergency-approved polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. An oral swab will be used for testing. Test kits will include a prepaid FedEx shipping sticker and can be shipped to the company's partner lab. Results that are 4% accurate, according to a Wellness 99 Humanity spokesperson, promise to deliver within 48 hours.
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The machines will also have tests for antigens (antibodies), they will go on sale later than PCR tests. The result of this test can be obtained within 15 minutes and does not need to be sent to the laboratory.
The machines provide for contactless purchase; payment will be made from the buyer's mobile device.
By the end of this month, the first slot machine is expected to appear at 225 W. 34th Street in midtown Manhattan.
“These vending machines represent a significant milestone in providing Americans with easier access to rapid and highly accurate COVID-19 testing,” said Lian Nguyen Pham, co-founder and CEO of Wellness 4 Humanity. "We have seen similar vending machines located in densely populated areas of Hong Kong and the UK."
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Wellness 4 Humanity has partnered with San Francisco-based technology company Swyft to create this project. In 2020, Swyft placed personal protective equipment vending machines at 10 metro stations in New York City.
But they are not the only ones offering such machines. The University of California, San Diego, California, was planning to install about a dozen test vending machines around its campus earlier this year. They use laboratories on campus for smear testing, services free for students.
