Testing Strategies for COVID-19 Modalities & Experiences of Various Countries

Diagnostic testing to identify persons infected with COVID-19 infection is central to control the global pandemic that began in late 2019. In a few countries, the use of diagnostic testing on a massive scale has been a foundation of successful containment strategies. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction–based assays performed in a laboratory on respiratory specimens are the current reference standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. Although tools exist for the diagnosis of symptomatic patients in well-equipped laboratories, important gaps remain in screening asymptomatic persons in the incubation phase as well as ineffective tracking of  people's history of travelling. Many affluent countries have encountered challenges in test delivery and specimen collection that have inhibited rapid increases in testing capacity. These challenges may be even greater in low-resource settings.  An immediate clinical and public health is needed to currently increase testing capacity for SARS–CoV-2 infection.