In a Facebook video, Vivian Balakrishnan demonstrates how quickly pre-event testing might be done

SINGAPORE — In a bid to show how quick and “reasonably” convenient Covid-19 tests for large-scale events will be, Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday (Oct 22) evening uploaded a Facebook video where he demonstrated the test on himself.

In the three-and-a-half-minute video, the ophthalmologist and former Singapore General Hospital chief executive narrates the various steps of an antigen rapid test (ART) as he performs the swabbing and testing while seated at a desk.

“I won’t say it’s comfortable, but it’s not painful,” he says as he twirls a swab stick in his nostril.

As Singapore moves to resume more social and economic activities amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Tuesday announced that the ARTs will be trialled at large-scale events such as selected wedding receptions and live shows from this month.

Currently, the polymerase chain reaction test, which takes a few days to process and involves more manpower and logistics, is the main method used to confirm Covid-19 cases.

The ARTs can be processed in only 15 minutes, MOH said. Although they are less accurate, they are also cheaper and easier to administer.

In the Facebook video, Dr Balakrishnan showed that the ARTs would require only a few components.

He first inserts a swab stick midway into one nostril and twirls it five times to pick up the mucus, then repeats the step with the same swab in his other nostril.

Dr Balakrishnan then inserts the swab stick into a reagent container and swirls the stick around for about 15 seconds to dislodge the mucus.

After capping the reagent container, he shakes it and puts three drops onto a reader that looks similar to a pregnancy test kit.

He then starts a timer and a red ink starts to rise up a strip on the reader. After it rises fully, he inserts the reader into an analysing machine which displays the results of the test after a few seconds.

“I think it says Covid-2 negative,” Dr Balakrishnan says.