Sensitivity of mid-turbinate versus nasopharyngeal swabs for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

To compare sensitivity of specimens for COVID-19 diagnosis, we tested 151 nasopharyngeal/mid-turbinate swab pairs from 117 COVID-19 inpatients using RT-PCR. Sensitivity was 94% for nasopharyngeal and 75% for mid-turbinate swabs (p=0.0001). In 88 nasopharyngeal/mid-turbinate pairs with matched saliva, sensitivity was 86% for nasopharyngeal swabs and 88% for combined mid-turbinate swabs/saliva.