Fighting COVID-19 with Flexible Testing: Models and Insights
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Abstract
Increasing testing capacities plays a substantial role in safely reopening the economy and avoiding a new wave of COVID-19. Pooled testing can expand testing capabilities by pooling multiple individual samples, but it also raises accuracy concerns. In this study, we propose a flexible testing strategy that adopts pooled testing or individual testing according to epidemic dynamics. We identify the prevalence threshold between individual and pooled testing by modeling the expected number of tests per confirmed case. Incorporating an epidemic model, we show pooled testing is more effective in containing epidemic outbreaks and can generate more reliable test results than individual testing because the reliability of test results is relevant to both testing methods and prevalence. Our study is the first to evaluate the interplay between pooled testing and a rapidly evolving outbreak to the best of our knowledge. Our results allay accuracy concerns about pooled testing and provide theoretical supports to empirical studies.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.17.20233577: (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: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our analysis also subjects to several limitations. First, we assume the prevalence is known, and then choose individual or pooled testing according to the prevalence. During the pandemic, developing methods to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 is crucial for adjusting containment policies. Moreover, we use a well-mixed SIR model to capture the difference between individual and flexible testing. More detailed transmission models that …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.17.20233577: (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: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our analysis also subjects to several limitations. First, we assume the prevalence is known, and then choose individual or pooled testing according to the prevalence. During the pandemic, developing methods to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 is crucial for adjusting containment policies. Moreover, we use a well-mixed SIR model to capture the difference between individual and flexible testing. More detailed transmission models that consider the heterogeneous population and social contact patterns can provide a more specific testing performance evaluation. In addition, assessing the diagnostic accuracy of tests administered to pooled samples and asymptomatic individuals is also an urgent priority5,24. Flexible testing and the newly developed tests, which are low cost and noninvasive, make widespread and frequent testing accessible and help navigate uncertainty after the reopening. Compared with the painful containment measures, increasing testing frequency enables people to return to workplaces and students to go back to schools more safely. For example, the U.S. National Football League is individually testing all players and team personnel every day or every other day during the regular season except game day because false positives may cause the delay or cancellation of a game. The seven-day positive rate is only 0.017% between August 30– September 5, 202025. Pooled testing can save more than 95% of tests for the National Football League. Moreover, the University of Illi...
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: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on page 5. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.
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.
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