It seems like a nice idea. Responsible people will be testing for COVID for a long time, but would probably not otherwise routinely test for flu. With no extra effort involved this could protect vulnerable people from flu.
Love this!
That’s awesome! I was afraid we’d go back to medical gatekeeping after the emergency use authorization expired, and I’d have to pay a nurse practitioner to get a covid test. And I’m delighted to get the flu test. Flu can be treated with pills if you catch it early, and if it’s just a cheap swab test, it’s worth testing anything nasty for possible flu.
If the testing mechanism remains the same as it is for covid tests, that’ll be nice update. I don’t know how many of you have had a flu test, but when I had one it wasn’t collected with a cotton swab. Instead it was a plastic thing that had a flat paddle very reminiscent of 80s McDonald’s coffee stirrer, about the width of my pinky nail, and while it didn’t hurt it was deeply uncomfortable.
On a recent trip to my doctor’s office, I mentioned I was recovering from a cold. She promptly politely insisted on checking me for Covid/flu/RSV. Super-long swab that probably came close to poking my brain, and somewhat painful despite her best efforts to be as gentle as possible.
All three tests were negative. I told her it was just a cold. 
It’s a home test, exactly the same as the home COVID test. So it’s going to be ELISA, a quick google tells me that flu testing is similar to COVID - the gold standard is RT-PCR. But in most cases with flu people wouldn’t be getting tested at all, so this will save lives.
The Lucira COVID-19 & Flu Home test, which can be purchased without a prescription, uses self-collected nasal swab samples and delivers results in about 30 minutes, the agency said.
Well, I and Mr. brown are over 65, so I suppose we’ll be getting another bivalent booster soon. I thought that this fall was when we’d do the next one, but this news will bump it up a bit. It’s free, it’s recommended for folks our age, so it’s off to CVS again.
If you plan to travel this summer, you might delay it until a few weeks prior to that.
Good point.
Ages 65 and older and certain people with weakened immunity.
Florida man is still making bad choices.
Being able to combat the fatigue symptoms common to long COVID would make a life-changing difference for many thousands:
This is one of the first randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials of a potential long COVID treatment - AXA1125. Randomized control trials are considered to be gold standard for testing potential treatments for an illness.
People living with long COVID in the trial who received AXA1125 had a significant improvement in fatigue compared to those who received a placebo (material matched in appearance and taste to the investigational treatment). The study was double-blind, that is, neither the patients nor the researchers working with the patients knew which patients had the treatment and which patients had a placebo.
WHO ends global health emergency declaration for COVID-19 : Goats and Soda
We discussed the previous study linking the origin of the outbreak to racoon dogs in the Wuhan wet market. Now here’s a new study refuting that claim, but not offering an new origin theory. In fact, it makes some mention that we may never know.