[koeng]

I know a guy who is trying to arrange serological testing for Union employees in the LA port area with this exact idea.

The problem is bulk ordering tests - you need a massive investment (about 750k for minimal order size of 100k tests), which he's been trying to find some philanthropic money for.

Those finger prick tests are convenient, but they only show results if your body is already producing antibodies. The really good test is an RT-PCR or RT-LAMP test, which uses a pretty invasive swab technique. It's pretty unpleasant.

Colormetric RT-LAMP is the right method for that startup (probably) because you can deploy it with pretty few resources and get rapid tests. However, it can be finicky, and isn't approved by the FDA AFAIK.