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Twitter’s Hunter of Rare PlayStations Is Now Finding Covid Tests

A Twitter account with 1 million followers, looking for rare PlayStation 5 game consoles, is now helping people find Covid tests.

Twitter’s Hunter of Rare PlayStations Is Now Finding Covid Tests
A Covid-19 lateral flow self-test kit. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

A Twitter account followed by more than a million people looking for rare PlayStation 5 game consoles is now helping them find Covid-19 tests.

The account known as Wario64 tweeted on Thursday that BinaxNOW rapid tests were in stock from Amazon.com Inc. On Wednesday evening, it alerted followers when the test became available on Walmart Inc.’s website in some regions, generating thousands of likes and hundreds of quotes and retweets.

The new focus for Wario64, who predominantly tweets about the availability of video games and restocking of game consoles, underscores just how much trouble Americans are having finding Covid-19 tests. While President Joe Biden vowed this week to ramp up testing capacity, many people have been left in a lurch as the fast-spreading omicron variant sweeps through the country. Tests like BinaxNOW, made by Abbott Laboratories, are often out of stock at drug stores and online.

Wario64’s Twitter profile says the verified user is an Amazon associate who may earn from qualifying purchases.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.