JANESVILLE, Wis.— A Janesville Mercyhealth ER doctor and a team of medical and engineering minds are part of a potentially groundbreaking and non-invasive five-second COVID breath test.
Dr. Christopher Wistrom learned a machine developed by the Pennsylvania based environmental services company RJ Lee, could smell better than a dog’s nose.
"When they told me, our machine smells better than a dog, I said, ‘Well if your machine smells better than a dog, shouldn't your machine be able to smell COVID?'"
More specifically, he wondered if the test could detect the cellular changes that come when someone is infected with COVID.
"We needed to break down this breath test into age categories, because it's gonna look completely different in someone who's healthy and 30, than in someone who's not healthy and 60. And when we did that, the numbers magically just worked," he said.
After rigorous testing at Mercyhealth and the Henry Ford, the $400,000 machine has a 95% success rate for anyone 50 and above — and the goal is to get the breathalyzer style technology to TSA by next Christmas.
"I think we can set it up to screen about 1000 people an hour per machine, and then have that confidence that hey 95% chance that we're on this fight and it's good. That's wonderful. I'll take those odds right now, any day, " Dr. Wistrom said. "This is a way to get back to life, it's a way to get out of limbo and get back to Lambeau, you know, we're here in Packer country we got to do that," he added.
Currently, Dr. Wistrom says the COVID breath test creators are in early talks with the FDA, and so far, those have been positive.