New York Times highligted the benefits of smell test for Covid-19 with a low cost

Our u-Smell-it test was featured by The New York Times, and they highligted the benefits of screening for Covid-19 with a low cost smell test.

[From the article]

…. But a reliable smell test offers potential benefits. It could catch far more cases than fever checks, which have largely flopped as screening tools for Covid-19. Studies have found that about 50 to 90 percent of people who test positive for the coronavirus experience some degree of measurable smell loss, a result of the virus wreaking havoc when it invades cells in the airway.

In contrast, only a minority of people with Covid-19 end up spiking a temperature. Fevers also tend to be fleeting, while anosmia can linger for days.

A smell test could also come with an appealingly low cost, perhaps as low as 50 cents per card, said Derek Toomre, a cell biologist at Yale University and an author on Dr. Larremore’s paper. Dr. Toomre hopes that his version will fit the bill. The test, the U-Smell-It test, is a small smorgasbord of scratch-and-sniff scents arrayed on paper cards. People taking the test pick away at wells of smells, inhale and punch their answers into a smartphone app.

Dr. Toomre is seeking an emergency use authorization for U-Smell-It from the Food and Drug Administration, and has partnered with groups in Europe and elsewhere to trial the test under real-world conditions.

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