Stanford University creates its own coronavirus test and results only take 24 hours

As the demand for coronavirus tests continues to climb, Stanford University has created its own.

The test, created by a Stanford Health Care laboratory, is being used on Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health patients “suspected of being infected with the respiratory virus,” a news release from the university said.

The lab started working on the test in January and confirmed “that the test meets the requirements to be a useful clinical tool” in February, according to the release.

The test is expected to have results in 12 to 24 hours, the release said.

Meanwhile, health officials say that the country “desperately” needs more coronavirus tests.

“Testing capacity is not currently adequate, and we need more,” said Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention for the Johns Hopkins Health System said during a briefing before Congress, according to NBC News. “We need this as soon as we can have it.

LabCorp announced on Thursday that it can now perform “several thousand tests per day,” according to NBC, and results will take 3-4 days.

Quest Diagnostics Inc. said its/ testing is expected to start on Monday.

“I think all of those individual efforts are to be commended because we desperately need the testing,” Maragakis said, according to NBC.

In addition, Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on Monday that “by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed,” according to The Atlantic.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that “roughly 1.5 million tests” would be available by next week, according to the outlet.

Despite those promises, The Atlantic found that the testing fell well below the projections.

“The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told the outlet. “I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

Over 101,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide — with more than 300 cases in the U.S. — and more than 3,400 people have died so far, according to Johns Hopkins University.

This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Stanford University creates its own coronavirus test and results only take 24 hours."