As a screening tool for new coronaviruses, nucleic acid testing has been pushed into the public eye, so what exactly is nucleic acid testing? The substance of nucleic acid testing is the nucleic acid of the virus. The nucleic acid test looks for the presence of nucleic acids of foreign invasive viruses in the patient’s respiratory specimen, blood or stool to determine if the patient is infected with a new coronavirus. Therefore, a “positive” test for nucleic acid is evidence of the presence of the virus in the patient’s body. When a new coronavirus infects the body, it first multiplies in the respiratory system, so it can be determined by testing sputum and nasopharyngeal swabs for viral nucleic acids. Therefore, a positive nucleic acid test can be used as the gold standard for confirming the diagnosis of novel coronavirus infection.