Table 1.

Comparison of SERS technology versus currently applied methods for SARS-CoV-2 detection.

	SERS	Nucleic acid-based tests	Serological tests
Analyte/s	viral envelope and membrane proteins	viral RNA	antibody/antigen
Acquisition time	5 mina	15 min - 8 hr	15–30 min
Timeframe of effectivity	no limit	early infection stage (6 days before to 14 days after symptom onset)	late infection stage (7 days after symptom onset)
Selectivity	depends upon the condition – some substrates have components with high affinity to the target, thus resulting to high selectivity	highly specific; targets viral RNA specific to a particular virus	low; can produce false positives with other same-category viruses
Estimated cost per test	10–50 USD	100–300 USDb	25–100 USDb

^aApproximate acquisition time based on SERS studies in general.

^bReference: (Krouse and Abbott, 2020).