Manufacturing the synthetic SARS-CoV-2 RNA that would serve as a “positive control” should have been outsourced to a lab that was disconnected from the CDC facility that was assembling the completed kits. It was critical that the two processes be kept far apart. RNA can be hard to work with. It attaches to surfaces and spreads easily.19 The risks of doing all these things in the same facility are well known in the lab industry and a common source of problems.
