How can we determine whether someone who has COVID-19 can transmit the virus to other people? Tests in routine clinical use, such as reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and antigen tests, are designed to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 is present or not, but many people have proposed that these tests be used to determine whether a patient is infectious. Furthermore, tests for SARS-CoV-2 that are not routinely used in clinical laboratories, such as viral culture and detection of sub-genomic viral RNAs, have also been discussed as indicators of infectivity. But how accurate are any of these tests for determining whether someone is infectious?

Guest:

• Dr. Matthew Binnicker, Director of Clinical Virology and Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic. Twitter: @DrMattBinnicker.

Links:

• Can Testing Predict SARS-CoV-2 Infectivity? The Potential for Certain Methods to be a Surrogate for Replication-Competent Virus.

Visit journals.asm.org/journal/jcm to read articles and/or submit a manuscript.

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• COVID-19
• Clinical & Public Health Microbiology
• Podcast