On January 23, 2020 Christian Drosten and Victor Corman et al publish in Eurosurveillance , just 24 hrs after submission, their paper titled “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR” – the basis for PCR testing globally. The paper was submitted only 11 days after genome sequence release on Jan 10, 2020, before anyone outside of China
In acute respiratory infection, RT-PCR is routinely used to detect causative viruses from respiratory secretions….virus isolates or samples from infected patients have so far not become available to the international public health community.”
“We report here on the establishment and validation of a diagnostic workflow for 2019-nCoV screening and specific confirmation, designed in absence of available virus isolates or original patient specimens”.