We read the recent ERJ Open Research article “Advances in diagnostic tools for respiratory tract infections: from tuberculosis to COVID-19 – changing paradigms?” by Stojanovic et al. [1] with great interest. The article represents a comprehensive review of current best practice in diagnosing respiratory tract infection (RTI), as well as highlighting the future of diagnostic tools in this area. We pay particular interest to the section on pathogen identification and the exciting developments described.