In an effort to ease the diagnostic logjam the United States is facing with the coronavirus surging in various parts of the country, the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday granted an emergency use authorization for pooled COVID-19 testing.
Quest Diagnostics will now be able to group up to four samples together and will only test them individually if the batch comes back positive. This approach — which has been used in Germany, China, Israel, and South Africa, among other countries — can help save valuable time and resources during the pandemic.
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