Covid-19 surge demands shift to cheaper, less accurate tests, says Roche
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Surging Covid-19 cases globally will necessitate a shift to more testing with cheap, less-accurate antigen tests because more-accurate molecular, or PCR, tests are in short supply, the Swiss drugmaker Roche's diagnostics chief said on Thursday.
"Since the world is still in shortages when it comes to PCR tests, we strongly believe that the antigen tests are a significant contribution in this time period because you're going to identify most of the people that are actually spreading the infections," Roche diagnostics head Thomas Schinecker said on a call with reporters.