Visit the CDC or MDH website for more information as it becomes available.
Contact MDH at (651) 201-5414 or (877) 676-5414 for consultation and questions.
Detection of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) illness due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
Recommended only for patients who meet current clinical and/or epidemiologic criteria defined by federal, state, or local public health directives: CDC Overview of Testing for SARS-CoV-2
Not for order by Allina Health sites.
There are no food or drink restrictions prior to collection of nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal samples for COVID-19 testing.
COVID-19/Coronavirus sample collection kit
Kits have been assembled by the Central Lab to include an NP or OP swab and transport media. Note that the contents of the kits may vary as supply inventory is fluctuating.
New England Journal of Medicine video on NP swab collection: Nasopharyngeal Swab Collection Video
COVID-19 sample collection kit
Oropharyngeal (OP) swab:
Refrigerated (preferred) - 72 hours
Frozen - 7 days
Real-Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR)
Not detected
Nasopharyngeal (NP) vs oropharyngeal (OP) collections
There is a severe swab shortage. When an NP swab isn’t available, an OP or anterior nares swab is acceptable. The OP swabs can also be used for anterior nares but not for NP (there is no support for using an OP swab as an NP swab).There are some short swabs that can also be used for nares but are too short for OP.
For consistency’s sake and per Mayo’s recommendation for OP as the next step, Allina Health is using OP when NP isn’t available.
Sensitivity
We don’t have a clear answer on sensitivity as there are too many confounding factors. Swabs aren’t the only factor – the viral load is highest for the first few days after symptom onset – swabs collected too early or later in the disease course will have lower sensitivity. This is a confounding factor for published studies that don’t take into account the point in the disease course when the swab was taken.
The most important factor in sampling is to get adequate upper respiratory epithelial cells (where the virus proliferates), and not just secretions.