Israel, India Give Hope To Businesses Hampered By COVID-19 With 30-Second Test

A coronavirus rapid test co-developed by Israel and India that detects COVID-19 virus infection in less than a minute could be rolled out in a "matter of days," reports the Jerusalem Post.

What Happened: India and Israel governments were working jointly to develop a rapid coronavirus detection test utilizing patients in India and Israeli technology that could detect the virus in 30 seconds, the Jerusalem Post reported in August.

The operation called "Open Skies" will enable patients to blow in a tube and have the results in less than a minute.

The project is developed by India's Defense Research and Development Organization and Israel's Directorate of Defense Research and Development.

The test is a combination of four technologies — sound waves, breathalyzers based on terahertz waves, isothermic identification, and checking polyamino acids.

Once approved for use, India will mass manufacture the test kits. The clinical trials for the test began in late July in India, but results on its efficacy couldn't be ascertained as of press time.

"I think it is a matter of days. What I hear from those involved in the process, it should not take more than 2-3 weeks to finalize that one reliable and accurate technology or a combination of more than one from amongst the four different technologies being analyzed," Israel's ambassador to India Ron Malka told the Press Trust of India in an interview.

The test will be cheap as the results will be delivered locally, thus eliminating the logistical costs and time of sending the sample to the lab.

Why It's Important: The pandemic has kept the brakes on a lot of industries for over six months now.

As countries open their economies, the number of infected cases is seeing a dramatic rise leading to closures and restrictions.

The rapid test could help countries let the businesses and airports resume operations as infected patients can be detected and isolated in minutes.

Once approved for commercial use, this test will benefit airlines, cruise liners, hotels, restaurants, movie theatres, malls, and theme parks.

Related airline stocks: Southwest Airlines Co LUV, American Airlines Group Inc AAL, Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL, United Airlines Holdings Inc UAL, Alaska Air Group ALK, Spirit Airlines Inc SAVE, JetBlue Airways Corp JBLU, SkyWest, Inc SKYW and Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. HA.

Coronavirus test related stocks: Abbott Laboratories ABT, Quidel Corp QDEL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc TMO, and Quest Diagnostics Inc DGX.

Cinema stocks: AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC, Cinemark Holdings, Inc. CNK, Marcus Corp MCS, IMAX Corp IMAX, and Reading International, Inc. RDI