State officials will test all who work and live at five state-run residences for the developmentally disabled for COVID-19 using a saliva test developed at Rutgers University that’s seen as a critical tool both in assessing the scope of the outbreak and eventually in restarting the state’s economy.

New Jersey’s five so-called developmental centers house more than 1,200 residents, and employ 4,300 staff members. So far, though, the state’s done fewer than 350 tests combined at the centers, which are run by the Division of Development Disabilities as part of its mission to care for some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

Sam Friedman’s relieved. His disabled sister, Jackie, lives at the Green Brook Developmental Center in Somerset County and he’s pushed for the universal testing of residents and staff, noting the virus has already killed seven disabled people living at the centers.

“Personally, I cried. We’re very grateful,” said Friedman, vice president of the Friends and Family Association at Green Brook. “We know that this will save lives. There’s no doubt whatsoever that this will save lives.”

Residents of the developmental centers were already medically fragile people before COVID-19 swept across the state, infecting more than 100,000 and killing more than 5,600 in New Jersey.

“Some of them are on ventilators,” Friedman said. “These folks are, as a population, at extremely high risk, both of getting infected and of having bad outcomes.”

The effort to keep both residents and staffers safe poses special challenges, he added.

“Jackie can’t know, she can’t describe her symptoms. ‘I’m not feeling well,’” he said. “The staff who work there can become infected by residents whom they don’t even know are infected. So it works both ways.”

Dr. Brian Strom, chancellor of Biomedical and Health Sciences at Rutgers says the saliva test — which does not entail the uncomfortable deep nasal swab of most COVID-19 tests — is a game-changer, in terms of its relative ease, quicker turnaround for results and the potential to accommodate significantly expanded numbers of subjects.

“You’re basically spitting into a cup,” he said. “And it’s much faster. It’s much more convenient. It’s much less risky, you don’t need the person taking it to be masked.”

The Rutgers-based team that developed the test modeled it on the sampling mechanism employed by the popular 23andMe/Ancestry.com genetic testing companies. The test is self-administered, and entails simply spitting into a tube and closing the cap, which releases a chemical to preserve the virus’ DNA for lab assessment.

The saliva test was first rolled out for public use at a state Motor Vehicle Commission drive-through in Edison. Strom says the lab can currently process 10,000 test samples a day, but that can be scaled up dramatically.

After vulnerable populations and first responders get tested, the saliva test will be used to ensure safety in the wider workplace, testing those without symptoms, Strom said.

Expanded testing is a cornerstone of plans to reopen the state, in conjunction with the development of a robust contact-tracing protocol for those who test positive.

“As I have noted many times, having robust and greatly expanded testing program in place is vital to our being able to begin to reopen responsibly our state,” said Gov. Phil Murphy during one of his daily press briefings this week. “We need to at least roughly double our testing capacity as a minimal benchmark.”

The thought was echoed by Strom. “This absolutely could be key to reopening the state,” he said.

“Testing people before they go into work, to make sure they’re okay,” he continued. “Certainly, before you put people in any crowds. You want to test and make sure they don’t have this disease.”

Strom said the state will release phase one of its comprehensive plan to reopen the economy on Monday, and Murphy has said New Jersey will need up to 20,000 tests per day.

Next week, the Rutgers lab is getting a second processing unit to double its capacity to analyze samples.

Meanwhile, Friedman wants the state to recognize that vulnerable populations will need to be tested more than once.

“This isn’t going to go away, unfortunately, anytime soon,” he said. “So we will be watching.”