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To the Editor, When facing the global health emergency of COVID-19 (the illness caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)), as declared by the WHO at the end of January 2020 [1], clinical microbiology laboratories worldwide are ideally asked to refine their diagnostic paraphernalia to maximize direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 in patient samples. This experience started on March 1 - when our regional government authorized laboratories, other than the national reference laboratory in Rome, to perform real-time PCR assays to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in nasopharyngeal swab samples - and ended on March 24 (i.e. at the time of writing). Hence, TAT (the time from sample receipt in the laboratory to release of PCR result) was dependent either on the time taken for pre-PCR steps or on laboratory working hours (12 h/day versus 24 h/day). [Extracted from the article]

Healthcare workers are at the forefront against COVID-19, worldwide. Since Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli (FPG) IRCCS was enlisted as a COVID-19 hospital, the healthcare workers deployed to COVID-19 wards were separated from those with limited/no exposure, whereas the administrative staff were designated to work from home. Between 4 June and 3 July 2020, an investigation was conducted to evaluate the seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) immunoglobulin (IgG) antibodies among the employees of the FPG using point-of-care (POC) and venous blood tests. Sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values were determined with reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction on nasal/oropharyngeal swabs as the diagnostic gold standard. The participants enrolled amounted to 4777. Seroprevalence was 3.66% using the POC test and 1.19% using the venous blood test, with a significant difference ( p < 0.05). The POC test sensitivity and specificity were, respectively, 63.64% (95% confidence interval (CI): 62.20% to 65.04%) and 96.64% (95% CI: 96.05% to 97.13%), while those of the venous blood test were, respectively, 78.79% (95% CI: 77.58% to 79.94%) and 99.36% (95% CI: 99.07% to 99.55%). Among the low-risk populations, the POC test's predictive values were 58.33% (positive) and 98.23% (negative), whereas those of the venous blood test were 92.86% (positive) and 98.53% (negative). According to our study, these serological tests cannot be a valid alternative to diagnose COVID-19 infection in progress.