Are there tools to diagnose infected individuals?

“When during infection are they effective?”

What do we know?

PCR protocols and primers have been widely shared among internationalresearchers though PCR-based diagnostic assays do not differentiate between active and inactive virus.
A combination of pharyngeal (throat) RT-PCR and chest tomography are the most effective diagnostic criteria (correctly diagnosing 91.9% of infections).Single throat swabs alone detect 78.2% of true infections, while duplicate.
Nasal and pharyngeal swabs may be less effective as diagnostic specimens than sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid.
RT-PCR tests are able to identify asymptomatic cases; SARS-CoV-2 infection was identified in 2/114individuals previously cleared by clinical assessment.
The FDA released an Emergency Use Authorization enabling laboratories to develop and use tests in-house for patient diagnosis.Updated tests from the US CDC are available to states.
US CDC has expanded patient testing criteria to include symptomatic patients at clinician discretion.
Several rapid or real-time test kits have been produced by universities and industry, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, BGI, and Cepheid.
The US CDC is developing serological tests to determine what proportion of the population has been exposed toSARS-CoV-2.
Machine learning tools are being developed to predict severe and fatalCOVID-19 cases based on CT scans.