Rapid test: the app tells you how reliable your corona test is

Corona rapid tests
The quick test check: This app tells you how reliable your corona test is

This is what it looks like when the Schnelltest test knows a corona test and compares it with the data from the Paul Ehrlich Institute. You can see at a glance how accurate it is.

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Corona rapid test is not the same as a corona rapid test – because the accuracy varies considerably. There is now a barcode scanner for your smartphone so that you can see whether a product works reliably according to the assessment of the Paul Ehrlich Institute.

The Berlin IT collective exploration has developed a web app to help you check the accuracy of corona tests in the supermarket. In this way you can avoid buying tests that are not or only partially able to detect an infection.

And it works like this: You call up the website on your smartphonehttps://schnelltesttest.de/“. There you can either scan the barcode of a test or enter its code. For the scan, you must allow the website to use your camera. If the barcode is already stored in the app’s database, you will immediately receive detailed information Information on the reliability of the test.

20 percent of all self-tests are insufficient

The information in the app is based on the work of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PDF), which determined and published the quality of countless tests at the end of 2021. The result: Around 20 percent of all commercially available tests failed completely in terms of accuracy. And even with tests that reliably detected a high virus load, the results fluctuated greatly as the amount of virus decreased. Translated, this means: Many tests that are supposed to give you security do not detect an infection if you cannot show enough pathogens. But you still have Corona.

That was also the reason for the creation of this app. Like the researchers in their Blog entry write, the team repeatedly made bad purchases, since the store often did not have the opportunity to correctly assess the quality of a corona self-test. Because admittedly: As useful and important as the work of the institute is, the table is just as confusing – especially on a smartphone. The team was therefore a little annoyed when the Paul Ehrlich Institute was asked about an alternative to the PDF table and no one helped.

Help us!

Working on the app requires your help! Since each test can have many different barcodes, depending on the size of the pack and the place of sale, by no means all the results of the PEI are stored in the app’s database. If the tests are missing, the collective asks that a photo of the barcode, a photo of the test and the name of the test be sent in so that the information can be stored for the next scan.

Developers can also sign up for the Source code of the app because the development is open source and anyone can review it. However, an app for iOS or Android will probably not follow, as IT activist Lilith Wittmann suggests star betrayed. “The self-test also works very well in the browser, the hurdles of the app stores would only delay work on the project,” she explained.

This is exploration

The Berlin collective Zerforschung was founded to take a closer look at technical innovations and to critically question them. This applies, for example, to government apps, e-learning platforms and the Safety of corona test centers. Wittmann, who is also involved in the work on Zerforschung, was most recently in the media after discovering a possible cover agency.

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