High Collection-volume Nasal Swab and Patient App for Self-testing

To achieve massive-scale testing for SARS-Cov-2, three components need to be scaled up: 1) sample acquisition; 2) diagnostics; 3) data reporting and analysis. This proposal addresses scalable solutions to points 1) and 3) and quality improvements in point 2) by introducing: 1) an extremely low-cost nasal swab assembled from readily available off-the-shelf components for cheap, rapid, massive scale production for self-testing. (Raw materials for 1 million swabs costs only ~$10,000 at a penny per swab.) 2) a gauze-based swab design with high surface-area-to-volume ratio to enhance the amount of sample captured and released by the swab by a factor of x4* or more over standard nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs (*factor of 4 already demonstrated with in vitro tests) 3) a unique mobile-based QR-code identifier and data-entry app for each swab kit to enable secure/private communication between testing sites and each patient (e.g., reporting of results) and to facilitate tracking of disease symptomatology and user-behavior to improve understanding of adherence to public health recommendations.