Gates Package — page 1100

in large part why some v immunoassays--the ones Testing people for a disease should serve two purposes: letting them know very quickly whether they're infected so they can take action (including isolating themselves), and also informing public health officials so they know what's happening in the community. Some portion of positive tests should be gathered and sequenced so that variants can be seen as soon as they emerge. The quick rollout of PCR tests and quarantine policies explains in large part why some countries, such as Australia, had dramatically fewer infections and excess deaths than others. In addition to making systemic changes in disease surveillance, which I'll cover in the next section, we need to continue pursuing innovations in diagnostics. Two key steps are to: Keep improving the gold standard of testing. High-throughput PCR testing has all the benefits of a typical PCR test but is also remarkably fast, processing 100,000 tests per machine per day. It is also very cheap and doesn't require the supplies of reagents that limited our diagnostic capacity in this pandemic. PCR is easily adapted to detect any new pathogen as soon as the sequence is known. Deploy and improve new types of tests that make it easier to collect samples and turn around results quickly. Low-cost lateral flow immunoassays--the ones that resemble a pregnancy test--unlock the possibility of testing throughout entire communities. So does the LumiraDx system, which I mentioned in Chapter 3; the LumiraDx machines need to be made cheaper and more durable. And now that we know that self-swabbing is an effective way to get a sample, more people in more places should have the opportunity to take advantage of it. 2. Improve disease surveillance.