Diagnostic Performance of the ID Now™ COVID-19 Screening Test Versus Simplexa™ COVID-19 Direct Assay

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), first appeared in China, and then spread around the world. In December 2019, a group of patients with pneumonia of unknown origin were infected after exposure to the market in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Very quickly, a new coronavirus was isolated from a sample of a patient's lower respiratory tract and the entire virus genome was sequenced. This new coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2 for its genetic homology with SARS-CoV, has shown worldwide spread. Thus, on January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the COVID-19 epidemic as a threat to public health at the international level, then, in March 2020, the global situation degenerated into a pandemic. Johns Hopkins University has reported more than 7,600,000 cases of infections and more than 427,000 deaths as of June 13, 20203. Due to the rapid progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and the limited capacity of molecular laboratory tests, the concept of delocalized molecular tests appears to be relevant. Indeed, the urgent need to increase testing for COVID-19 has been clearly identified as an essential part of the strategy to combat the coronavirus worldwide. In fact, COVID-19 represents a major public health problem currently causing a rapidly increasing number of infections and significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. As of July 1, 2020, more than 10 million people worldwide have been infected with SARS-CoV-211. As of August 25, 2020, this tally is 23,741,562 cases of contamination and 813,820 deaths following Johns Hopkins University.