Clark,
Is all the testing commercial, or is there a government programme too? And if there’s a government programme, do the public have to pay for those tests?
Sure, there’s state programme, free testing, as all vital medicine in my country. They do tests and computer tomography and whatever doctor considers necessary – for those people who have signs of the disease.
It works like that: you call the “hot line” and report you have signs of the virus. A medical crew in protective suits arrives at your home and examines you, takes material for analysis, if necessary they may bring you to a CT scan of the lungs, or they can hospitalize you.
If the symptoms are non-dangerous they prescribe you to stay home, isolated. When the results of the test are ready they call you back and inform of the result. If positive and the manifestations of the disease are slight, then you get official paper notice and you should stay at home. Doctors call these patients daily and patients report their temperature and overall state of health.
The official paper also obligates you to install the monitoring app in your phone and confirm that you are staying at home and observing quarantine, by the app reminder (usually send your photo). Also, the official notice reminds you that you are responsible for the spread of the epidemic, and if you are careless and infect people with a fatal outcome, you can be prosecuted. When you have 2 negative test results, you are considered ‘cured’ and you report it back to the… actually I don’t know whom they report back… and uninstall the app.
It’s great to have a commercial alternative, in case you have no symptoms, and you’d like to do a test just to be sure. There must be a lot of people who want to do it. That’s why my government published a list of authorized labs, to prevent scam testing.