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Zhang Shuyang, vice-president of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said two of the most popular diagnostic methods for COVID-19 are PCR nucleic acid tests and antibody tests. The former is a tried-and-trusted method that is cost-effective for large scale diagnosis, as it only requires the use of swabbed tissue.

Based on Zhang's experience, nasal swabs are more accurate than throat swabs, but both methods may not include as much viral content as extracting fluid from the lower respiratory tract, which consists of the trachea and the lungs, she said.

"Samples collected from the lower respiratory tract tend to yield fairly accurate test results, because that's where the virus mostly resides," she said. However, this procedure is more time-consuming and difficult to conduct, and should be reserved for patients with more pronounced symptoms.