Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): What dental practitioners need to know

COVID-19 FAQs, page 9

9. Is there a test for COVID-19? Who should be tested? Where can I get tested?

This pandemic struck with little or no warning and spread very rapidly. It is very fortunate that the resources of the CDC were able to develop a test almost overnight for use in testing patient specimens for the COVID-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The test is a real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) diagnostic panel, and it is intended for use with upper and lower respiratory specimens collected from persons who meet CDC criteria for COVID-19 testing.

Because of the very short timeline that confronted CDC, the number of test kits was very limited, and there were some initial problems with the test. However, these have been overcome, and now test kits are being released to state health departments and some other qualified laboratories.

At least right now, test kits are still in limited quantity. Anyone who is a person under investigation (PUI) should be tested. That includes anyone who exhibits symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and has traveled to or from countries with community-based transmission, contacts of anyone who has COVID-19 or is a PUI, and anyone with acute respiratory syndrome or other symptoms that the clinician may suspect is COVID-19. The recommendations for testing are expanding as COVID-19 spreads in the community. Initially, all testing was done at the CDC in Atlanta, which took two to five days. However, now that local health departments are testing, the results are available in as little as 24 hours.