A COVID-19 testing kit geared for live events has been developed by Austrian startup testFRWD. With the mission of accelerating the recovery and safe re-opening of the tourism and events sector, the company has launched the world’s first DIY gargling COVID-19 test kit, “specifically designed to enable pain-free, large-scale, and low-priced testing.”
Company co-founder Veit-Ander Aichbichler emphasized the reliability of the 99% accuracy test, stating, “this is the only viable—and approved by local governments—solution from a safety perspective to reopen events.”
The globally-patented and CE-certified kit requires users to gargle for 60 seconds as opposed to the traditional nasal swab test. In collaboration with partners including Lighthouse Festival founder Hennes Weiss, testFRWD offers a daily capacity of 80,000 tests and turnaround time of 24 hours. The kit is currently available in 123 countries as well as drugstores and pharmacies in Austria.
“As a festival and club promoter, I realised pretty quickly that a single player cannot change the game. Testing will be the only way within the next six-to-ten months to enable events, grant permissions and raise capacity limits. The challenge? Current testing technologies were simply beyond promoters’ event budgets. At testFRWD, we have fought hard to bring prices down to well below market levels,” stated Weiss.
Learn more about testFRWD here.
H/T: Resident Advisor Featured image: Live Nation
