testing for the coronavirus is dropping even as infections remain high and the death toll rises by more than 1,000 a day, a worrisome trend that officials attribute largely to Americans getting discouraged over having to wait hours to get a test and days or weeks to learn the results.

Amid the crisis, some health experts are calling for the introduction of a different type of test that would yield results in a matter of minutes and would be cheap and simple enough for millions of Americans to test themselves — but would also be less accurate.

Widespread testing is considered essential to managing the outbreak as the U.S.

Jessica Moore of rural Newberry, South Carolina, said that after a private lab lost her COVID-19 test results in mid-July, she had to get re-tested at a pop-up site organized by the state.

“If people have something to do on a Saturday and they want to get tested, they’re not going to wait for two hours in the South Carolina heat for a test, especially if they’re not symptomatic,” Moore said.

Others who had gone through the line told them that they wouldn’t get their results until five days later, a Monday, at the earliest.

testing is built primarily on highly sensitive molecular tests that detect the genetic code of the coronavirus.

Although the test is considered the gold standard for accuracy, experts increasingly say the country’s overburdened lab system is incapable of keeping pace with the outbreak and producing results within two or three days, the time frame crucial to isolating patients and containing the virus.

A number of companies are studying COVID-19 antigen tests in which you spit on a specially coated strip of paper, and if you are infected, it changes color.

A proposal from the Harvard researchers calls for the federal government to distribute $1 saliva-based antigen tests to all Americans so that they can test themselves regularly, perhaps even daily.

To date, the Food and Drug Administration has allowed only two COVID-19 antigen tests to enter the market.