Following Graham Weston’s Lead in COVID Testing

Most of us would try to avoid passing on COVID-19 if we knew we have it, but what happens if you don’t know you have coronavirus? Since we want to be sure we don’t unintentionally spread coronavirus to our customers, we took a page out of Graham Weston’s playbook.

You may have seen in the news how Weston caught coronavirus from his son even though his son never showed any symptoms. Waking up to the effects of “silent spreaders,” he decided to work with other community leaders to help San Antonio by setting up a nonprofit called Community Labs for the purpose of testing “micro-populations” such as schools or businesses where people are together for several hours a day on multiple days a week.

Weston’s work made us think, “How would we feel if we unintentionally spread Coronavirus to our customers or other people in our lives?” We care about y’all too much to be the folks at fault of getting someone else sick. While we started taking basic precautions at the very beginning, a few weeks ago we took our preventive measures a step further by testing for “silent spreaders” on our own team. Here is what we did.

We have offices in Geekdom, and when Community Labs wanted to pilot their testing project, they opened up the opportunity to Geekdom members to try out the COVID-19 PCR tests. Well, we jumped at the chance.

It wasn’t long before Braustin team members with direct customer contact were getting tested once a week. The test we are using is the same one used by Community Labs and the test is completed through BioBridge Global, the same folks who run San Antonio’s blood bank as well as the lab that also completes several rapid results tests for different types of infections.

The test is called the PCR test (for Polymerase Chain Reaction test), and it is considered the “gold standard” for detection of the COVID-19 virus. PCR has been around since 1984, and the one specifically developed to detect COVID-19 has been around from about the beginning of 2020.

After several months in use, the test has a proven track record of success. We are in good company by using it. The brilliant folks at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard used this test as part of getting their scientists back to the labs to work. 

The one we are using was created by Thermo Fisher Scientific, and like we said, administered by BioBridge Global. We like the test for two reasons. First, the test results come back fast, so we aren’t walking around for days not knowing whether or not we have COVID. The other benefit is personal. The swab doesn’t need to go nearly as far up your nose as other tests. 

Can we just say thank you!

Now, some of you may be very worried about COVID-19, and some of you might not worry at all. That is not the point. The point is, we care enough about you that we are doing everything we can to keep you from getting coronavirus from us. The testing is just one layer of protection. 

You can read about our full COVID-19 protocols here, but just know we are doing a lot more than just weekly COVID-19 tests. It is possible to go through the entire process of buying a home with us without ever meeting us in person. If you do want to come on in, we not only have masks, but we also treat all our touch surfaces with a solution that mechanically kills any virus.