LENEXA, Kan. (AP) — For months, the people at a Johnson County lab found themselves consumed, running an endless parade of tests on human spit.

The feds hadn't yet OK'd a single saliva test for COVID-19, but the scientists at Clinical Reference Laboratory were sure they could design something that worked.

If they could, they'd have a test that would let people give samples at home. It would skip the need for deep nasal swabs that were in short supply and freaked many people out. And it would spare the surgical gloves, gowns and masks needed elsewhere in a world knocked sideways by the pandemic...