Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave

There is one mainstream RT PCR kit, the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 laboratory equipment, which can deliver a result in 46 minutes, from feed to output, and there are a few others that go a bit over an hour. By the time you collect samples, transport them to the kit, wait for the results, have a coffee, email them out, it's a bit of a stretch to get it all done in an hour. With good organisation and no coffee then I concede it's possible. Mostly when I've checked "rapid PCR" tests, they tend to be Abbot ID-Now. This is a good and accurate molecular test, which we use in some of our health care settings with 100% accuracy, but it's not reverse transcription PCR. Positives can come back in about 6 minutes, negatives in around 14 minutes. The OP here hasn't clarified exactly what the test was yet, so I'm not surprised there were problems.