Covid-19 Test-At-Home Kits?

 Well....public TV (ARD, Channel One) is lightly discussing the topic today.

So to the five basic facts:

1.  This would be a 'quick' test that you'd buy in a pharmacy....probably starting around the last day or two of January.

2.  Cost?  Still being discussed but the general chatter is between 10 and 15 Euro.  Won't surprise me if the original sales price is 14.99 Euro per kit.  

3.  Who'd pay for it?  You, the consumer.  But there is chatter that the government might hand you a 'coupon' or voucher.  Maybe it's for one free one per month....maybe it's a 5-Euro off coupon for one per month. There seems to be a fair amount of debate how much they'd spend for the consumer deal.

4.  A quick test usually takes 15-to-20 minutes.

5.  If you examined the false-positive nature of these quick tests....they range from 80-percent to 95-percent.  That means you could take the test several times in a day, and show a positive at least once.

I reviewed this story a fair amount.  It is with good intentions that the Health Ministry is pushing for the open use/sale to occur.

But in some ways....it just opens up more chaos and stress.  Some folks buying a ten-package test kit....spending 129 Euro?  Quiet possible.  If they had the money, they might buy a ten-package kit every single month.

The reliability angle to this product?  On my own personal level....95-percent is pretty 'trusting'.  Once you get to 80-percent....my trust level drops a good bit.

The odds that you might discover that after drinking some cinnamon-flavored coffee or some weird yogurt drink....you always get a false-positive?  I think in a couple of months, we'd find various conditions that would create the false-positive problem, or even the false-negative issue, and question the products available.  

My German wife buying into this test kit stuff?  The 'queen-of-frugality'?  Never.  If I bought a couple of these...I'd have to hide in the secret stash area of the basement, with the beef jerky, Snickers, and other forbidden household items.  She'd just tell me in blunt German....when you got it....you got it.