A Canadian medical technology company has signed its first COVID-19 rapid test tracking deal for 140 clinics in Meru County, Kenya. To date, Relay Medical (OTC:RYMDF) has flown under investors’ radar with a royalty agreement on Fionet COVID-19 tracking devices, but if the company signs more deals like it did on September 10, 2020, investors will not be able to overlook the company much longer. For every test recorded on the Fionet device, allowing for individual entry into buildings, Relay receives a royalty payment. On September 8th, 2020, newsletter writer James Harris of www.moneytrendalert.com reported that Relay is looking to pursue deals with airports, sporting venues, convention centres, hospitals, major commercial office buildings, public government buildings, military bases, cruises, and more.

Relay’s Fionet is the missing piece for governments to test, track, and prevent outbreaks of COVID-19.

Fionet devices were originally made to track ebola, malaria, dengue, and HIV outbreaks across 4 continents. From 2014 to 2019, over 1 million tests were recorded using Fionet software, but now the technology has been repurposed for rapid COVID-19 tests at point-of-entry sites to locations where individuals work and gather in close quarters. Relay’s first deal with the Meru County Ministry of Health in Kenya allows clinics to rapidly test patients with antigen tests before entering medical facilities, while storing the COVID-19 data on the cloud. The Fionet system already adheres to Kenya’s mandatory national COVID-19 protocol, with no need to run trials. Relay Medical will look to leverage the successful implementation of its first Fionet agreement, to expand its test tracking deals with other national and international agencies.

Rapid Point of Entry Testing is the best current solution for businesses that require gatherings of people.

In general, governments have pursued three approaches to solving the COVID-19 problem; two of which do not currently offer practical solutions for businesses:

 

  1. mass shut-downs of non-essential businesses, and areas of communal gatherings

  2. rushed vaccines

  3. volume testing combined with contact tracing, and COVID-19 treatment

While it is understandable why governments reacted to COVID-19 in March and April with mass shut-downs, it has become clear that this strategy is not a viable solution to the overall problem, arguably causing more harm than good. Income streams for large portions of the population that relied on rental payments, mortgage payments, investor payouts, and salaries were all removed. All businesses requiring gatherings of people to function were decimated. Shutdowns did not end the virus but they did unnecessarily bankrupt many people.

Every politician wants to stand on a podium and proclaim, “We have a vaccine!” The truth of the matter is, the production of vaccines should not be a race. The Coronavirus presents its own unique set of problems for vaccine companies, the main one being that our immune systems do not all react to new medicines in the same manner. Side effects of vaccines can take years to test properly, so even if a vaccine is developed and released for COVID-19 tomorrow, a large percentage of the population will be cautious to volunteer for one.

Recent studies have proven that, while it is true that COVID-19 is highly contagious, it is not as deadly for the vast majority of the world’s population as originally thought. In early September, the CDC admitted that only 6% of the COVID-19 recorded deaths were directly due to COVID-19. There was an average of 2.6 comorbidities for deaths attributed to the Coronavirus. Within those comorbidities, the data did show respiratory failure in many patients, which often is a result of COVID-19, but it was made clear that the total number of deaths in the United States was inflated. Perhaps more importantly, data proved that almost all young, healthy people recover quite well from the virus. With this new knowledge, it has become apparent that the most effective path that governments can take to minimize the risk of spreading the virus, while avoiding shut downs, is for young, healthy people without main comorbidities to go about their lives, albeit with caution and good health habits. For many businesses, the missing link to reopening has been proving that people who enter facilities do not have the virus. The solution needed is point of entry testing, and that is exactly what Relay’s Fionet was designed to do.

Rapid antigen tests are getting faster, with positive results now showing up within as little as 5 minutes, and negative results taking up to 15 minutes. Two issues have prevented mass rollouts of these tests. While positive results are 100% accurate, negative results have measured 80% accuracy, with occasional traces of the COVID-19 virus going undetected. This has prevented some countries from adopting large numbers of antigen tests.  However, given that COVID-19 is not as deadly as we all once thought, wide-spread implementation of this testing method could be a viable solution to allow gathering businesses to operate, with young, healthy people without comorbidities to enter buildings and congregate. Prior to Fionet, the bottleneck for this strategy was that there was no universal system to collectively store the test data easily, across all locations. Fionet is a perfect, cost-effective solution for a long list of businesses currently struggling to operate safely.

There are two milestones that Relay must accomplish for widespread acceptance of rapid COVID tests recorded on Fionet devices. The first is to convince authorities that the current Antigen tests are a viable test solution to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and the second is to simply get the word out to any businesses where people gather in close quarters, to try this system. If Relay is able to achieve these two tasks, then the sky is the limit for the company.  The general population is going to be reluctant to accept a rushed vaccine, and business owners will rebel if mass lockdowns are reinstated. Removing civil liberties should never be the de facto solution by governments. Relay’s Fionet has the potential to help societies all over the world avoid that decision.  To learn more about the Fionet Rapid Covid testing device, visit: www.relaymedical.com

For people who do not fall into the high or medium risk comorbidity categories listed below, rapid point of entry testing could be the key to life returning to normal.

High-Risk

Cancer

Chronic kidney disease

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)

Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) from solid organ transplant

Obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 30 or higher)

Serious heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies

Sickle cell disease

Type 2 diabetes mellitus

People ages 70+

Medium Risk

Asthma (moderate-to-severe)

Cerebrovascular disease (affects blood vessels and blood supply to the brain)

Cystic fibrosis

Hypertension or high blood pressure

Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) from blood or bone marrow transplant, immune deficiencies, HIV, use of corticosteroids, or use of other immune weakening medicines

Neurologic conditions, such as dementia

Liver disease

Pregnancy

Pulmonary fibrosis (having damaged or scarred lung tissues)

Smoking

Thalassemia (a type of blood disorder)

Type 1 diabetes mellitus

Relay Medical Corp. is a Canadian public company trading under ticker symbol CSE:RELA and also trades on the OTC under ticker symbol OTC:RYMDF