Testing children for COVID-19 via sensitive molecular methods is important, although collecting nasopharyngeal (NP) specimens can be challenging. A less invasive specimen collection approach that yields test results comparable to those from NP specimens would be beneficial to simplify sample collection. Methods: To demonstrate that saliva is a suitable specimen for testing children, the clinical usability and the analytic performance of saliva were compared to NP specimens suspended in viral

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... nsport medium. Four different FDA EUA-approved molecular assays and one EUA approved saliva collection device were investigated. Results: There were 526 patients aged 3 and 61 years, 461 (88%) were <18 years, 425 were asymptomatic (81.1%), 92 were symptomatic (17.6%). Saliva mixed with stabilizing buffer was found to yield comparable sensitivity to NP specimens when tested on the AllPlex SARS-CoV-2 molecular test (Seegene Inc). The analytic sensitivity of the AllPlex assay with SpectrumDNA saliva stabilizer was found to be 250 genomic copies/mL. Conclusions: Of the four SARS-CoV-2 assays studied, we found the AllPlex assay to be best suited for testing saliva collected from children 5 years of age or older. The sensitivity of viral detection was equivalent to NP specimens when saliva specimens were mixed with the saliva stabilizer.