You realize that the only reason this kit is so expensive is because the FDA previously shut down a bunch of at home testing companies products right?

In case people forgot the first step of the FDA was to shut down at home testing. Then they fast tracked Roche and Thermo Fischer.

Now a month later they approve an expensive at home testing kit. You take your own conclusions of this behaviour.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/23/updated-fda-covid-19-testi...

Note that most of the initial tests required a nasopharyngeal swab which has to go back into your nose several inches. I'm not surprised that the FDA doubts that people would be able to do that reliably on their own given that even trained people seem to get it wrong a lot (1).

The LabCorp test uses a swab that doesn't go anywhere near as deep (2). For a test kit to be widely distributed, you need to have it be drop dead simple to run perfectly.

Given all this, I'm not sure we should jump to corruption as the reason this is the first at-home test.

1.) https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-testing-fal...

2.) https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/labcorp-s-at-home-coro...