From a technical perspective, it is a simple test. Hard part is chain of custody and sample integrity - controls, etc.

Are there any differences for Covid-19 samples versus any of the other samples such labs would be routinely testing though?

Yes, it is RNA virus so it is an extra step that is not necessary in many other PCR based clinical tests.

Sure, I meant for the non-technical aspects that the previous poster mentioned - chain of custody, sample integrity.

So the process used in this testing is so common that research labs and any biochemistry lab in any college or high-school can run the test. But they probably shouldn't because they have no practice nor experience providing a diagnosis to a human - much less the strict statistical controls to interpret their results reliably.

A clinical lab that is used to running these kinds of (very common) protocols will see no difference in this protocol from others they commonly run (from a chain of custody, sample integrity, etc. perspective), just with a slight change to their reagents to specifically test for COVID. Their handling should be no different.

It is, but there have been major bureaucratic delays, and no one was willing to step up and say "forget it, we are doing it". In addition, there have been shortages and/or problems with RNA extraction reagents/kits (this is a ssRNA virus) as well as viral nucleic acid sequence for positive control (positive control is critical for this type of testing).

we did PCR in my highschool biochem lab...

I've done it with an oven.