Tests conducted in the Murrumbidgee have likely been sent to the NSW Health pathology lab at Wagga Base Hospital, which at its busiest was analysing upwards of 550 swabs a day.

Laboratory manager Anthony Flaskas said the service provides pathology for the Murrumbidgee region.

"With some strategic lucky planning on behalf of NSW Health Pathology, we already had the instrumentation here," he said.

"It was just a matter of getting kits on site. Obviously the availability of kits is a continuing thing that we're looking at."

First, patient data is entered at reception before the samples are taken into the microbiology lab.

"Some of the fluid that is on the transport swab is used. Hopefully there's some DNA RNA there that we put on the machines for testing," Mr Flaskas said.

"It's very, very specific. So it's not as though it's going to pick up some other weird and wonderful disease. It is specifically targeting that disease state."

The Wagga Base laboratory is one of 37 sites across NSW set up for rapid PCR testing, which delivers results in hours and is used for high risk, priority cases in need of urgent diagnosis.

"We started COVID-19 testing in April using our rapid testing platform [machine]. That offers a very rapid test result," Mr Flaskas said.

"It's basically used for very acutely ill patients and that's through consultation with our respiratory physicians and disease control."

He said the companies who manufacture the analysis machines used in the lab had adapted their testing kits to detect coronavirus.

In June, testing kits became available for their 'high throughput analyser' BD Max Machine, which allowed the lab to ramp up to processing 192 COVID-19 swabs every couple of hours.

"We haven't achieved that. But we're there. If it needs to," he said.

The lab now has an average 12-hour turnaround for most COVID-19 tests.

"I think fast accurate testing is key to providing community peace of mind, enabling them to isolate for as little as possible [and] also enabling them to get treatment as quickly as possible if they do have the disease," Mr Flaskas said.

He said the laboratory was following universal precautions to keep its staff safe.

"We treat every sample as though it's infectious. So, we process samples in biological safety cabinets. We provide [personal protective equipment]," he said.

"We're here 24/7, 365 days a year. We're here for as long as we're required."