A test that can determine whether a person is infected with COVID-19 in as little as five minutes will be in the hands of doctors as early as Wednesday after receiving regulatory approval in the United States.

On Friday (March 27), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Abbott Laboratories emergency use authorization for the medical device maker's molecular point-of-care test that can detect COVID-19 novel coronavirus in patients. The approval will allow Abbott to ramp up manufacturing to provide 50,000 tests per day beginning April 1.

Abbott Labs' tests will use the company's ID Now platform, which, according to Bloomberg, is the most common point-of-care test currently available in the United States. Physicians currently use it to test for various types of influenza, strep throat, and other respiratory viruses.

For coronavirus testing, the clinician takes a swab from the patient's nose or throat and inserts it into the ID Now device. During the test, the machine scans for traces of the coronavirus genome. According to Abbott Laboratories, a positive test takes five minutes, while a negative test takes a little longer, 13 minutes.

Still, this rapid result is essential for physicians. Doctors can use the results to more accurately determine the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and to determine the course of future treatment. It also helps that the test can be performed on 18,000 platforms nationwide, according to Bloomberg figures. [Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that 100,000 to 200,000 people could die in connection with a coronavirus outbreak.

This is not a home testing solution. Instead, it will be provided directly to health care providers in emergency rooms. Abbott Laboratories says it will work with the Trump administration to determine where to deploy this test. Of course, this news comes at the same time that the administration is under fire for haphazardly allocating resources to fight the coronavirus pandemic. [The FDA's emergency approval of Abbott's COVID-19 test comes shortly after British researchers developed a coronavirus home test that provides results in 30 minutes. Abbott also approved the m2000 RealTime system for use in hospitals.