"50,000 standard tests per day by the end of April" and "more than 100,000" rapid tests per day in June, not to mention the expected arrival "in the coming weeks" of tests "serology" , promised the minister on Saturday of Health, Olivier Véran. A "type of fundamental examination for the French at a time when we are preparing for the deconfinement of France" . But what are these different types of tests, and what are they for?
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The rtPCR test looks for the virus itself. "PCR" means "polymerase chain reaction": it involves, by repeatedly heating and then cooling the sample, to force the duplication in large numbers of a small sequence of the genetic material of the virus. The letters "rt" means "reverse transcriptase": the genetic material of the coronavirus is not made up of DNA but of a close molecule, RNA. To duplicate the virus, an enzyme (transcriptase) transforms this RNA into DNA, which then uses cellular machinery
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