[oggy]

Thank you for the work on this.

I have a tangentially related question, hoping that someone knowledgeable can answer. What are the main bottlenecks to scaling testing, in particular in the following stages:

- the supply of virus-specific reagents (primers, perhaps virus-specific reporting probes - are these necessary, or can just generic reporters be used?)

- the supply of other reagents (in case of PCR, polymerase, nucleotide material, buffer)

- the supply of disposable testing equipment. I know that swabs are in short supply for some reason, anything else?

- safety in handling both the samples and the amplified product (can you basically flush the processed sample down the toilet, or do you need to handle it with extreme precautions)

[DataDrivenMD]

Short answer: they have all been bottlenecks thus far. In fact, that's a big reason why testing hasn't improved as rapidly as everyone hoped it would. The biggest bottleneck now is dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for those involved in obtaining and handling the test specimens.