Presently, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction is the most widely utilized technique for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2. But this method is cumbersome, tedious, and might not be quickly accessible in isolated areas with a circumscribed budget. Therefore, there is a quest for novel diagnostic techniques which can diagnose the disease in a lesser time in an economical way. This paper outlines the potential of biosensors in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2.

Daniel Holmes: The change that we had to deal with pretty quickly was that in September of 2020 in our jurisdiction, the positivity rate was less than 1% and that’s highly amenable to throughput performance improvements by using COVID pooling, or sample pooling I should say. So I think I would build that into every lab-developed test process, automate it as much as I can. Daniel Holmes: Thanks very much Randye.

This week the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America made the recommendation for healthcare facilities to not test for COVID-19 in new patients who are symptom-free during their hospital admission process or prior to procedures. “Testing of asymptomatic patients for severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 to attempt to reduce the risk of nosocomial transmission has been extensive and resource intensive, and such testing is of unclear benefit when added to other layers of infection prevention mitigation controls,” the authors wrote.