Originally Posted by
doctoravios
Sadly not. The reference test for viral infection is viral culture (i.e. seeing if you can grow the virus in the lab from the patient sample - the result takes several days and cannot be done en masse) and the more scalable test is RT-PCR which detects the viral RNA (can be as quick as 90 minutes, not portable but can be done near the patient as the PCR machines can be miniaturised). A positive RT-PCR test means you almost certainly have the virus. A negative RT-PCR test does not rule out viral infection - there are false negatives.
Impossible to answer this question. What is not possible today may yet be possible in 6 months. The speed and degree of rapid medical innovation continues to amaze me and although there is no certainty, I hope there will be a marked improvement in accuracy, cost and scalability of testing over the next year. But that is based on blind faith rather than any hard evidence at present.
I do believe we have some smaller result time RT-PCRs right now that aren't scaled yet. Abbot has a point of care test that's as low as 5 minutes... There's clearly scale issues when you're talking an airplane, and there's not enough known for time period when you're shedding enough compared to when you might test positive.. and the issue of false negatives. I don't get why people are getting so excited from antibody testing, since even if you looked at the IgG and IgM lines you're still in a margin of error where someone could be actively shedding. I was working with someone recently who's had a few tests done and still is shedding, despite no reported symptoms. We don't even know enough to know if detected antibodies would be neutralizing. All in all I think I'm gonna be dealing with this stuff for a long while.