Mitigating isolation: The use of rapid antigen testing to reduce the impact of self-isolation periods

  1. Declan Bays
  2. Timothy Whiteley
  3. Matt Pindar
  4. Johnathon Taylor
  5. Brodie Walker
  6. Hannah Williams
  7. Thomas J. R. Finnie
  8. Nick Gent

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Abstract

Isolating, either enforced or self-guided, is a well-recognised and used technique in the limitation and reduction of disease spread. This usually balances the societal harm of disease transmission against the individual harm of being isolated and is typically limited to a very small number of individuals. With the widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and requirements to self-isolate when symptomatic or having tested positive, the number of people affected has grown very large causing noticeable individual cost, and disruption to the provision of essential services. With widespread access to reliable rapid antigen tests (also known as LFD or LFTs), in this paper we examine strategies to utilise this testing technology to limit the individual harm whist maintaining the protective effect of isolation. We extend this work to examine how isolation may be improved and mitigate the release of infective individuals into the population caused by fixed time-periods.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.23.21268326: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: We have not considered compliance in this model. This is explicit as compliance is a complex and multifaceted behavioural science problem which is far beyond the scope of this simple physical-system model. Secondly, while the sensitivity of rapid antigen tests is well known within laboratory conditions, quantifying this in real-world situations is not trivial. To overcome this, we have incorporated some uncertainty into the model by using a random variable based on real-world conditions to describe the rapid antigen test sensitivity assigned to each simulated individual. Lastly, we have considered time within this system from a purely mathematical viewpoint. That is, days are 24-hour periods and the testing/releasing of simulated individuals occurs exactly at unit periods. In conversion to the real-world we understand that should someone begin what they consider day 0 at 23.59 and conducts their tests at 07:00 this will shorten the time window compared to the model. Figure 1 shows the results are still reasonably robust in this scenario however care is required in translation of time periods.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    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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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.23.21268326v1 on medRxiv