O’Reilly just had a doctor on that said there is a rapid test for it; however she also said the regular test still needs to be done- whether the rapid test is positive or negative. She didn’t come out and say the rapid test was not reliable, but she hemed and hawed around about it. So your question is very valid- how do they know so soon? If they are using a rapid test how reliable is it?
So you do a field test on a plane of 100 people. You get one positive hit and 99 negatives. So you have potentially 5 people who have had their wits scared out of them, but they are infected. 5 days from now...they start to feel flu. How much you wanna bet they get to the doctor faster than someone from the general population. Plus you already had the results within 24 hours. Or you really did have 99 negatives.
What I wanna know is sensitivity of the lab tests. Are they sensitive enough to pickup someone infected 4 hours ago, 3 hours, 2 hours, in the last 1/2 hour of the flight? Does protocol require distribution of antivirals to everyone on the flight?