High-Throughput COVID-19 Testing of Naso-Oropharyngeal Swabs Using a Sensitive Extraction-Free Sample Preparation Method.

High-throughput diagnostic assays are required for large-scale population testing for severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The gold standard technique for SARS-CoV-2 detection in nasopharyngeal swab specimens is nucleic acid extraction followed by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. Two high-throughput commercial extraction and detection systems are used routinely in our laboratory: the Roche cobas SARS-CoV-2 assay (cobas) and the Roche MagNA Pure 96 system combined with the SpeeDx PlexPCR SARS-CoV-2 assay (Plex).

Evaluation of a -Based PCR Assay and Assessment of COVID-19 Surge Testing Throughput Compared to Cobas SARS-CoV-2.

Reliable high-throughput methods are required for the detection of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We evaluated the new research use only (RUO) SpeeDx SARS-CoV-2 components (Plex) compared to the Roche cobas SARS-CoV-2 assay (cobas). A collection of positive ( = 214) and negative samples ( = 201) was tested in parallel comparing Plex with cobas.