Diagnosing and treating COVID-19

Dr. Stacey Rizza, an Mayo Clinic infectious diseases specialist, discusses the various ways COVID-19 is diagnosed and treated.
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COVID-19 can be diagnosed several ways when looking for active infection.

"The most common way that testing is done is with a swab into the nose or into the nasal pharyngeal area," says Dr. Stacey Rizza, a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases expert. "This polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is essentially a test looking for the genetic material of the virus." If it's positive, it means that person is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.