Swab: Leadership in the Race to Provide Covid Testing to America

Behind the scenes of the rush to create mass Covid testing programs overnight

SWAB is the story of how BioReference Laboratories—working with no roadmap, no federal guidance or support, and no prior pandemic experience—established processes to test every imaginable segment of the American public. BioReference rose to national prominence as the “first” on many COVID testing frontiers: New York’ s first drive-through testing site; the exclusive provider for the NBA “Bubble”; the exclusive testing provider for the NFL; the first to perform testing for New York City public schools; testing for the first cruise line (Royal Caribbean) to sail when the CDC order was lifted; the first to test thousands of fans for an NFL playoff game; and the first to develop large scale testing programs for testing thousands of people within one hour of special events.

SWAB is the story of how Dr. Jon Cohen and his thousands of employees worked around the clock to create bespoke COVID mass testing programs from scratch literally overnight, addressing a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the process. It is a case study of crisis leadership, and a visceral, relatable read for anyone who felt a cotton swab almost reach their brain while taking a Covid-19 test.