As the world begins to understand, SARS-CoV-2 poses several unique challenges. Asymptomatic and infected individuals are highly contagious and present unprecedented viral transmissibility. As countries and markets try to fully understand the economic impact of the pandemic, the value of a rapid diagnostic test for a rapidly spreading virus has never been more clearly demonstrated. The IATA projects that worldwide, the airline industry alone will see 2020 full year passenger revenues plummet by $252 billion, or 44% below 2019’s figure.
In the absence of a vaccine or a treatment for SARS-CoV-2, the only strategy against the spread of the novel coronavirus is to “detect and isolate.” While the number of new cases continues to rise throughout the world, there is a clear escalation of technologies and products to detect SARS-CoV-2. Given the nature and scale of the pandemic, we expect diagnostic trends such as access to point of care, connected systems, and innovative sample collection techniques to accelerate the market landscape.