Beyond Drive-Thrus: Why Curative Wants to Take COVID Testing to Mobile Vans and Vending Machines
In June 2020 we shared the Bloomberg QuickTake Original episode showcasing the California biotech startup, Curative, which has been working throughout the COVID-1 crisis to significantly increase testing capacity. On July 20, 2020 Rachel Uranga from dot.LA spoke with Curative founder, Fred Turner about the continued challenges we face both locally and across the country and possible ways to get more residents checked for the virus.
Curative’s offices in Los Angeles
“We have also been experimenting with other methodologies of getting tests to us other than just the walkthrough and the drive-thrus,” Turner shared. “We have mobile vans in Los Angeles that we are working with. We're working on a project to have a semi automated vending machine kiosk type service that could be deployed across cities.”
When asked why kiosks could be a solution to increased testing, Turner responded “the drive thrus have been great for big cities where they have the staff and the space to put something like that (together), but it's been challenging for some of the smaller cities to really deploy testing — even the larger cities.”
Turner continues, “ you reach a point where the entire fire department is deployed to do testing. That's not feasible for the long term. We've been trying to figure out ways where we can keep testing going without consuming too many of the city's resources, and also to reach neighborhoods that may not have easy access to testing.”
You can read Uranga’s full interview here.
Curative Inc. founder Fred Turner
