At the time, Brooks said the impact of this approval is significant. It means we no longer have to put health care professionals at risk for infection by performing nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal collections. We can preserve precious personal protective equipment for use in patient care instead of testing, he said in a statement shared by Rutgers. Saliva testing will help with the global shortage of swabs for sampling and increase testing of patients, and it will not require health care professionals to be put at risk to collect samples, Brooks continued. Saliva testing will also be important for people who are in quarantine because they don t know how long it will be until they are no longer infectious. This will allow health care workers to release themselves from quarantine and safely come back to work.