Clinical data from hospitals in China have revealed that 87% COVID-19 patients were aged 30–79 years and approximately 10% of the patients had severe disease requiring intensive care. Additionally, such patients with severe clinical manifestation are typically characterized by older adults with comorbid conditions such as cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, or diabetes [[9], [10], [11]]. Because of the lack of epidemiologic data regarding diagnostic tests for COVID-19 on a population level, this figure may overlook many infected patients with subclinical or mild disease who are unlikely to seek health care, representing just the tip of a possibly large iceberg [1,2]. Substantially greater epidemiologic information is the key to get an accurate handle on whether COVID-19 is less alarming than what has been portrayed so far. Moreover, even carriers with no or few symptoms appear to possess transmission potential of COVID-19 infection by shedding the virus [1,2]. Owing to the ineffective containment of the outbreak due to such asymptomatic transmission, there is an urgent need to accelerate the development of rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests, vaccines, and therapeutics for COVID-19 that is proving to be an epidemic in the human population.