Attracted by the prospect of helping in the fight against COVID-19 — and the $50 offer Amazon card to sweeten the deal: I agreed to be part of a recent test for a new reusable home test device to detect the virus.
I was contacted about the study by email from Fitness Medical Systemsthe Goleta company that has been administering COVID-19 tests to Santa Barbara City College students and teachers.
Aptitude got my name because, as an SBCC Adult Education student, I have been regularly tested at set sites at the Schott or Wake Extended Learning Centers before going to my Wednesday morning pottery class.
During the height of the pandemic, students were required to take the test within days of attending an in-person class, but now the tests are more of a suggestion and a courtesy to their fellow students. Vaccines and masks are still mandatory.
I continued to get tested, which is still available at both adult education centers as well as the SBCC main campus, because it is an easy means of free and convenient COVID-19 testing if I am concerned about potential exposure, or just to be sure.
So when the email from Aptitude appeared in my inbox, I signed up for the trial without much hesitation. The brief instructions for the participants stated:
1. It would be a two-hour appointment (which it wasn’t, more like a meager 90 minutes, even with a couple of mistakes on my part), so I might want to bring a book or phone to keep myself busy during appointment time. inactivity between sample collections.
2. I must not eat, drink, smoke or use oral hygiene products 30 minutes before my test.
3. I must not do any other home COVID-19 testing within eight hours of the appointment.
My session was scheduled for 11:30 am on a Monday and I arrived at the testing site on time, the Goleta Valley Community Center. I pulled into a parking spot in the circular driveway outside the historic building on Hollister Avenue in Old Town.
Aesthetically, the drab community center, which was built in 1927 as Goleta Union School, has certainly seen better days. But, as a COVID-19 testing site for many months, it has played an important role in helping save the lives of local residents.
I walked down the hall to Ward 3, where I was escorted by a young lab tech wearing a baby blue paper surgical gown and a white mask that closely resembled KN95 that covered my own nose and mouth.
She handed me a piece of white paper tape with a number on it to stick to my shirt and motioned for me to sit across from her at a small office desk.
The procedure involved four collections of samples: two that I would take and test on my own, presumably to see if the test kits are user-friendly enough for even a layperson like me to discover, and two collected by a professional from health. for further scientific study.
After watching a short video tutorial and receiving a step-by-step instruction booklet, I got started with the self-administered saliva and nasal swab test kits.
The process is similar to the at-home antigen tests we’ve all been doing for months: draw the sample, put it in a collector, shake it…you know the drill.
Except the new proficiency test includes a small black reusable reader box into which you insert a sensor that contains your collection sample and provides results in 30 minutes.
A solid green line means negative: COVID-19 not detected; solid red indicates positive for COVID-19; and solid purple means the proof is invalid: go back to the drawing board with a new proof.
I guess he’d give me a B for my testing skills. In the nasal test I forgot to remove the black plastic cap from the base of the collector, so that it would not stick to the sensor. Hey! And in the saliva test, it took me several tries before I pressed the sensor firmly enough on the reader to avoid an error message.
The third time, or maybe it was the fourth, was the charm.
Both tests showed that COVID-19 was not detected. Phew!
The hardest part of the whole experience was producing enough saliva to fill the test tube that would be used as a comparison sample.
Hoping it would make me salivate, the friendly healthcare professional administering the test kept asking me to think of my favorite food (an apple pancake, bubbly with hot cinnamon and sugar… Yum-O!) .
When that didn’t work, he pulled out a lemon-scented candle, which is apparently a saliva stimulator. Who knows?
It also didn’t help that I dropped the test tube at one point and had to start over. In a nod to the professionalism of Aptitude’s lab technicians, no one flinched (at least not that I’ve noticed) when an audible scream, and possibly a swear word, escaped my lips as the saliva receptacle slipped from my mouth. hand and landed on the carpet. Whoops!
Finally, I successfully completed all the required tests and, as promised, got a $50 Amazon Gift Voucher, which I quickly used to purchase more KN95 masks.
I headed home feeling very pleased with myself, especially after reading some of the information that Aptitude had included in the explanatory material it gives to test participants:
“By participating in this study, you are not only helping to combat the ongoing pandemic, but you are also helping us increase access and affordability of testing for all,” he says. “In addition, this product will be expanded to include other targets such as influenza, strep, STDs, etc. in the future so that people have access to appropriate and accurate health care in the privacy of their own home.
“This study is an important step toward realizing this goal and we greatly appreciate your help.”
— Marcia Heller is a noozhawk copy editor. Contact her at [email protected]. The expressed opinions are owns.