On Tuesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced a partnership with CVS Health to roll out rapid COVID-19 testing in Dearborn. The Abbott ID NOW™ COVID-19 test offers super-fast results, under 15 minutes.
Detroit was one of the first cities to deploy the rapid test, particularly to screen first responders and health care workers in quarantine, so healthy people could return to work. Mayor Mike Duggan suggested on Monday a deal for more machines was coming. But NPR reports some health care systems have stopped using it because of questions about its reliability.
NPR spoke to Dr. Gary Procop, who heads COVID-19 testing at the Cleveland Clinic and led a study that found ID NOW only detected the virus samples known to contain it 85.2% of the time. That means the test would’ve missed about 15% of the samples from people who in fact had the virus.