Comparison and correlation of commercial SARS-CoV-2 real-time-PCR assays, Ireland, June 2020

Abstract

We report the performance of a variety of commercially available SARS-CoV-2 PCR kits, used in several different sites across Ireland to determine if Ct values across platforms are comparable. We also investigate whether a Ct value, a surrogate for calculated viral loads in the absence of viral culture of > 34 can be used to exclude SARS-CoV-2 infection and its complications. We found a variation in Ct values from different assays for the same calculated viral load; this should be taken into consideration for result interpretation.