Using indoor air sampling surveillance to sniff out COVID-19

A team of scientists and doctors has developed a capability to detect airborne SARS-CoV-2 RNA -- the nucleic acid coding for the virus that causes COVID-19 -- indoors through air sampling. When trialed in two inpatient wards of a major Singaporean hospital caring for active COVID-19 patients the air surveillance approach produced a higher detection rate of environmental SARS-CoV-2 RNA (72%) compared to surface swab samples (9.6 percent) collected in the same area.