Here is a preliminary paper that suggests that RNA extraction kits, one of the main bottlenecks to Covid-19 testing in the US, can be skipped altogether and the next part of the assay (RT-qPCR) still works.  If confirmed, this result would have a major impact on how many tests state and hospital labs could run (they are manually extracting the RNA, which is slow, and running out of kits.)

COVID_directPCR_manuscript-Bruce et al Final 2020-03-20