BYO COVID-19 rapid tests
Photo-Illustration: TheCut; Photo: Getty It’s peak party-planning season, and with hosting come all the requisite anxieties: What if we run out of food? What if my running-group friends and my office friends don’t get along? What if nobody gets along because nobody shows up? In the COVID-19 era, there’s even more to consider.
For the past 12 years Ashley* and her husband have hosted a 40-person holiday extravaganza at their home in Boston. It’s a whole thing: There’s a potluck, a Yankee gift swap, and a dress code of cozy sweaters, slippers, and stretchy pants “so guests can stuff their faces.” Every year, she sends guests home with poinsettias and shirts with a cheeky quote from a holiday movie.
Corporate and branded events, too, are adding a testing requirement this winter. Publicist and Black in Fashion co-founder Sandrine Charles will be sending out rapid COVID-19 tests ahead of a Depop dinner at Indochine, even though proof of vaccination is required to enter the restaurant. “We just wanted to ensure that we extended that extra layer of safety for these guests,” Charles says.
Colyar isn’t convinced early-20-somethings would actually use at-home tests, even if they were as widely available as fentanyl test strips for cocaine. “Their tolerance for risk is just so much higher,” Colyar says. “They don’t live with family, they usually live with themselves or with one or two other like-minded roommates. I just don’t think that they jump through all of these mental hoops when they’re thinking about going to a party.
The reason for all this red tape, Dr. Adalja says, is the United States’ regulation of at-home COVID-19 tests as “full medical diagnostic tests, not public-health tests.” As a result of this designation, he says, “there are a lot of regulatory costs that get passed on to customers.” If the U.S. were to regulate at-home COVID-19 tests as public-health tests similar to a fentanyl test strip, “then you could see a very cheap version of this.
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