Backround on why  rapid tests for COVID-19 are in such short supply

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At-home rapid antigen tests are reselling for triple the retail price on some digital marketplaces. Testing locations in L.A. County have been overwhelmed by mile-long lines, with some events canceled due to traffic. Some would-be self-testers have resigned themselves to driving between CVS and Walgreens locations, hoping to snag a kit at a reasonable price.

Companies are racing to fulfill the excess demand.

Abbott Laboratories, which makes the BinaxNOW rapid antigen test, expects to produce 70 million tests this month and is working to raise that to 100 million, said CEO Robert Ford.

Pfizer CEO says omicron vaccine will be ready in March Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the goal is to product a vaccine that is much better at preventing infection from omicron. Spencer Kimball CNBC

fizer CEO Albert Bourla said a vaccine that targets the omicron variant of Covid will be ready in March, and the company’s already begun manufacturing the doses.

“This vaccine will be ready in March,” Bourla told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “We (are) already starting manufacturing some of these quantities at risk.”

Cyprus reportedly discovers a Covid variant that combines omicron and delta

A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the delta and omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the strain “deltacron,” because of its omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, Bloomberg said.

So far, Kostrikis and his team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report. It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.

“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” against the two dominant strains, delta and omicron, Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. He believes omicron will also overtake deltacron, he added.