Unlike tests conducted with nasal swabs, the saliva test does not require travel to a testing center. There are no perilous face-to-face encounters with technicians wearing masks that have been hard to come by. And there’s no need for the swabs that have also been in short supply. It’s just spit and mail to the Rutgers clinical genomics laboratory, with results within 48 hours.

“Rutgers blazed the path for home collection . . . Saliva is a big leap forward relative to swabs, and it is likely to play a major role in getting America back to work,” said Bob Terbrueggen, chief executive of DxTerity, a firm focused on tests for workplaces…

Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder have launched a firm called Darwin Biosciences and are developing the “SickStick,” a device to measure the presence of the virus in saliva. Oklahoma State University, while awaiting FDA approval, is using saliva to test thousands of nursing home patients. And in Connecticut, scientists are working on a test strip that could be taken at home for immediate results, without having to ship it to a lab — akin to a home pregnancy test.