Data-driven testing program improves detection of COVID-19 cases and reduces community transmission

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Abstract

COVID-19 remains a global threat in the face of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and gaps in vaccine administration and availability. In this study, we analyze a data-driven COVID-19 testing program implemented at a mid-sized university, which utilized two simple, diverse, and easily interpretable machine learning models to predict which students were at elevated risk and should be tested. The program produced a positivity rate of 0.53% (95% CI 0.34–0.77%) from 20,862 tests, with 1.49% (95% CI 1.15–1.89%) of students testing positive within five days of the initial test—a significant increase from the general surveillance baseline, which produced a positivity rate of 0.37% (95% CI 0.28–0.47%) with 0.67% (95% CI 0.55–0.81%) testing positive within five days. Close contacts who were predicted by the data-driven models were tested much more quickly on average (0.94 days from reported exposure; 95% CI 0.78–1.11) than those who were manually contact traced (1.92 days; 95% CI 1.81–2.02). We further discuss how other universities, business, and organizations could adopt similar strategies to help quickly identify positive cases and reduce community transmission.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.31.21261423: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


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