Stanford Student Claims to Run Bootleg Covid-19 Testing Lab
The test is trivial. It's just RT-PCR.- Spit in a 2 mL tube- Purify the RNA from the saliva in that tube using qiagen's Viral RNA mini kit (https://www.qiagen.com/us/products/diagnostics-and-clinical-...)- Get PCR primers against NCoV N by ordering IDT's CDC qPCR probe assay (https://www.idtdna.com/pages/landing/coronavirus-research-re...)- Run one step RT-PCR using your choice of one-step reagent (CDC recommends https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/A15300#/A...)- Either do the reaction in a qPCR machine or run the PCR result on an agarose gel with positive control, if you see a band matching coronavirus positive control then the sample is positive, if not negative. Also helpful to have a human sample negative control to be sure as well.There is no step here that requires critical thinking, it's just following instructions on the kits.Also, this is not like a "bootleg" version of doing it, this is actually the official way the CDC does the test.Edit: Please see official CDC instructions for how to run the test here: https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/downloadEdit 2: In terms of test shortages, it seems to be due to shortages in RNA extraction kits and swabs, only the former of which is really necessary, since the official guidance for sample collection has switched from upper respitory swabs to collecting sputum (phlegm) from the lower respitory tract (by just spitting it out): https://www.ft.com/content/86efe246-692e-11ea-800d-da70cff6e...