Our Testing Philosophy
At SafeFun, we focus on providing comfort – increased comfort from knowing the people around you have a recent, negative test result. No one can guarantee that a room will be COVID-19 free, but we work to reduce the risk and give you additional comfort. We believe the path back to normalcy is through frequent, rapid testing with a focus on contagiousness.
We are not epidemiologists. We rely upon the experts at the CDC, FDA, NIH and others to provide conservative guidelines around safety. We use those guidelines in our algorithms to provide you comfort.
Test Types and SafeFun Windows
COVID-19 tests can be broken down into three main categories – Molecular, Antigen and Antibody. Detailed information on each type and their usefulness is well described by the FDA on the following page.
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/coronavirus-testing-basics
Molecular – Often referred to as NAA (Nucleic Acid Amplification) with the most frequent kind being at RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction), these are the gold standard in determining a true negative diagnosis for COVID-19. These tests are available with same-day and next-day results. Because it is possible for someone to contract COVID-19 immediately after taking a test, we grant a 48 hour window from the time of the test for our Strong SafeWindow and 72 hours for our Weak SafeWindow.
Antigen – These tests look for a particular variety of immune response. They are reliable in determining positive infection but not reliable in determining negative. However, they are reliable in determining the window of contagiousness. We conservatively grant a 24 hour Weak SafeWindow period for negative antigen tests. We do not provide a Strong SafeWindow for antigen tests.
Antibody – Antibody tests are not reliable to determine the current state of infection. They are only reliable in determining the presence of COVID-19 antibodies. The science today is unclear as to whether the presence of antibodies stops a person from being able to catch the virus and transmit it again. Because of this, we do not, today, accept antibody test results. We will continue to monitor the scientific research but will always take a very conservative approach.
Test Results
We have to be able to trust the test results for this to work. We clearly can’t simply take someone’s word for their results. For that reason, we only use verifiable test result formats.
Today, we support test results in PDF format as well as results returned from automated, web-based systems. Each format and testing center is different.
We have developed an intelligent system to read any variety of PDF test results and match them to the user to ensure the test result is valid and that the submitting user is the actual person who took the test. We do this to combat fraudulent submissions and increase comfort.
Testing Centers
Our early focus was on the largest testing companies to ensure early, broad reach. Our current initiative is to support the remaining hundreds of labs across the country. Even if your testing center isn’t supported today, by submitting your test result, it goes into our work queue so that we can validate the testing center, analyze the result format and integrate its format into our system. If you’re the first to submit a test result from a testing center that we don’t have in our system, we will send you a $25 gift card from Target or Starbucks. See more details at 1,000 Testing Centers Campaign.
If you work for a testing center that provides COVID-19 testing and would like SafeFun to support your tests, please contact us in the form below.
Testing Center Contact
