Diagnosing COVID-19

ABSTRACT

hina continues to fight the outbreak of a novel coronavirus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has infected tens of thousands and killed more than 2,100 people since the end of 2019. The outbreak’s hot spot is in the central province of Hubei, in particular, its capital city Wuhan, where there have been more than 62,000 infections and 2,029 deaths as of last week, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There, doctors and scientists are desperately struggling to find reliable ways to diagnose infected patients to help treat them and control the spread of the virus. The struggle has involved two diagnostic options—computed tomography (CT) scans of patients’ lungs and a nucleic acid lab test—each with advantages and disadvantages. With “a suddenly rampant new virus, it is normal to have multiple test approaches,” says a virologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention