Just reading the straws about Sonic got me wondering about some of the assumptions regarding a drop in revenue post COVID. 

I am increasingly uncertain what the future of testing will look like. 
We have had the capacity to do respiratory viral panels for a number of years. Mostly, we never bothered because it doesn't alter management in any meaningful way. By this I mean if you present with a cough and fever and it as obviously part of a viral illness doing an expensive test to prove it but in no way alters the treatment is seen as a waste of time and money. 
That all changed with COVID. We routinely do COVID tests and often a full respiratory panel as well. 
There is now an expectation to know what the virus is. It still doesn't alter anything but just seems to expected practice nowadays. The tests have got cheaper now and COVID is often part of the panel so the additional cost is minimal. 
This does not apply to lateral flow tests which are not part of the landscape here in Australia. 
 

It's difficult to know what the expectations of the community will be and also what restrictions workplaces will put on their staff. There could easily be a wide push to adopt respiratory viral screens despite it being  illogical. 
 

Secondly, there is a bit of commentary regarding influenza making a big comeback this northern winter. The Theory going:

• antibody mediated immunity is very low as no one has had flu for 2 years
• everyone is going back normal and mixing and creating the environment for flu to spread as usual
• the probability of significant mutation of viral strains is higher as they have had several years to mutate while the world looked elsewhere 
• influenze vaccination rates have dropped off

I have no special insights into the merits of these arguments but for those companies leveraged to high testing rates, things may not be so gloomy as it seems