COVID-19 is an acute respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, which has high transmissibility. People infected with SARS-CoV-2 can develop symptoms including cough, fever, pneumonia and other complications, which in severe cases could lead to death. In addition, a proportion of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 may be asymptomatic. At present, the primary diagnostic method for COVID-19 is reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which tests patient samples including nasopharyngeal swabs, sputum and other lower respiratory tract secretions. Other detection methods, e.g., isothermal nucleic acid amplification, CRISPR, immunochromatography, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and electrochemical sensors are also in use. As the current testing methods are mostly performed at central hospitals and third-party testing centres, the testing systems used mostly employ large, high-throughput, automated equipment. Given the current situation of the epidemic, point-of-care testing (POCT) is advantageous in terms of its ease of use, greater approachability on the user's end, more timely detection, and comparable accuracy and sensitivity, which could reduce the testing load on central hospitals. POCT is thus conducive to daily epidemic control and achieving early detection and treatment. This paper summarises the latest research advances in POCT-based SARS-CoV-2 detection methods, compares three categories of commercially available products, i.e., nucleic acid tests, immunoassays and novel sensors, and proposes the expectations for the development of POCT-based SARS-CoV-2 detection including greater accessibility, higher sensitivity and lower costs.

Recently, electronic skins that simulate the human sophisticated somatosensory system by transforming physiological signals into electrical signals have attracted considerable interest in various fields such as intelligence robots, human–machine interfaces, various wearable devices, etc. Herein, inspired by the human hairy skin, we reported a flexible capacitive pressure sensor with high sensitivity and a broad detection range using a hair-like micro cilia array (MCA) as the dielectric layer through a facile and cost-effective methodology. For the first time, we demonstrated that the MCA can be conveniently obtained with tunable morphologies taking advantage of the magnetic field simply from a portable magnet to serve as the dielectric layer for flexible capacitive pressure sensors. The shape controllability of the MCA structure was systematically investigated using various preparation parameters, e.g. the magnetic field, mass ratio of the composite, etc. With the optimized structure, the proposed sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 0.28 kPa⁻¹ (0–10 kPa), a broad detection range of up to 200 kPa (sensitivity of 0.02 kPa⁻¹ within 50–200 kPa), a detection limit of 2 Pa and excellent structural robustness and stabilities. Practical applications such as pulse-sensing, voice recognition, gas-flow monitoring, high pressure monitoring (bending, walking, jumping, etc.), spatial distributions, etc. were successfully demonstrated. Thanks to the facile and cost-effective fabrication approach as well as the outstanding sensing capability, the proposed pressure sensor can be of profound significance for future applications including wearable electronic devices, artificial intelligence, interactive robotics, and other actual fields.