COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing
COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2. Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-coV-2) is one of the strain/pathogen that causes COVID-19. Covid Testing is basically assessed on their sensitivity and specificity abilities. A test’s sensitivity is the ability of a test to correctly identify those with the presence of disease (true positive rate), whereas test specificity is the ability of test to correctly identify those without the disease (true negative rate).
What are the different types of COVID-19 tests available?
There are two different kinds of tests available for COVID-19.
- A viral/diagnostic test that tells you if you have an active coronavirus infection.
- An antibody test tells you if you had a previous infection.
Currently there are two types of viral tests– molecular tests, such as RT-PCR tests, that able to detect the presence of specific genetic material from the virus, and antigen