Lee KK, Doudesis D, Ross DA, et al. - For diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in suspected patients, the combined nasal and throat swab is used widely, however, there remains uncertainty regarding its diagnostic performance. Researchers conducted this prospective, multi-centre, cohort study with the aim to evaluate the combined nasal and throat swab with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in consecutive patients admitted to hospital with suspected COVID-19. Among a total of 1,368 consecutive patients (median age 68 [interquartile range, IQR 53–80] years, 47% women), a total of 3,822 tests (median 2 [IQR 1–3] tests per patient) were performed. Findings suggest excellent specificity, but limited diagnostic sensitivity, for COVID-19 of a single combined nasal and throat swab with RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 in patients admitted to hospital. Repeated testing significantly improved diagnostic performance.