Credit: Graphic created by M.E. Newman, Johns Hopkins Medicine, using public domain images.
In what is believed to be the largest prospective study of its kind to date — involving some 6,000 patients seen at a field hospital set up at the Baltimore Convention Center (seen in background) — researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and collaborators report that a rapid antigen detection test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, proved more effective than expected when compared with virus detection rates using the established standard test, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.