On Jul. 18, 2020, the FDA reissued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Quest Diagnostics to authorize its Quest SARS-CoV-2 rRT-PCR test for use with pooled samples containing up to four individual swab specimens collected under observation.

Sample pooling does this by allowing multiple people ﾖ in this case four individuals ﾖ to be tested at once. The samples collected from these four individuals are then tested in a pool or ﾓbatchﾔ using one test, rather than running each individual sample on its own test. If the pool is positive, it means that one or more of the individuals tested in that pool may be infected, so each of the samples in that pool are tested again individually.