At its daily press briefing at 2 p.m. today, the Minnesota Department of Health is expected to announce the establishment of a new saliva testing lab in Minnesota that will double the state’s current test processing capacity.

Gov. Tim Walz announced this morning that the state is finalizing a $14.66 million contract with RUCDR Infinite Biologics, one of the country’s leading distributors of saliva testing. The testing lab is expected to be operational by early October.

The current daily testing capacity in Minnesota is between 20,000 and 22,000 tests a day with a rolling average of 14,000 tests. The saliva lab will be able to process up to 30,000 a day.

The primary selling points of the saliva testing is that it is painless compared to nasal testing, there is less of a likelihood of supply shortages and less personal protective equipment is needed because the person submitting the sample collects it themselves under the supervision of a healthcare professional.

Today’s MDH press briefing will be live-streamed on several media platforms.