Biotechnology company Wellness4Humanity has opened a New York City flagship store for rapid COVID-19 testing. Located in Herald Square, the two-story, 9,000-square-foot store showcases the company’s new line of take-home COVID-19 test kits and proprietary vending machines.
Wellness4Humanity’s vending machines offer COVID-19 home test kits and dispense FDA Emergency Use Authorization (E.U.A.)-authorized rapid antigen and RT-PCR saliva tests — both available through contactless purchase and payment on a mobile device.
The TRUSTPASS rapid antigen at-home test kit provides results in just 15 minutes, with no shipping or lab work required and a 97.4% accuracy and 100% specificity, meaning false negatives are unlikely. The at-home saliva RT-PCR test is done through saliva collection rather than through the nasopharyngeal swabs, and the samples are then sent to a partner lab using a prepaid FedEx shipping label. Customers receive their results from the saliva RT-PCR test within 48 hours with 99% accuracy. Results are sent to customers via Wellness4Humanity’s TRUSTPASS smartphone app, through which Wellness4Humanity issues test results and declares someone “COVID-19 safe.”
Wellness4Humanity’s COVID-19 test kit vending machines were developed in partnership with Swyft Inc., a software and technology services company that sells, manages and operates unattended retail solutions for brands. The machines will eventually be available at thousands of brick-and-mortar and vending locations throughout the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Las Vegas, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix and other major markets.
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The venues for Wellness4Humanity’s vending machines will include university campuses, shopping malls, retail corridors, hotels, music and entertainment venues and more. The company also is currently in talks with every major airport in the U.S., including those in San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, Houston and other key U.S. markets, according to a release.
“These vending machines are a significant milestone in helping to provide Americans with easier access to fast, highly accurate COVID-19 testing,” said Lian Nguyen Pham, CEO and Co-Founder of Wellness4Humanity in a statement. “Automated testing is a convenient and safe way to test for COVID-19 in the comfort of your own home for one or multiple members of your household.”
