Mitigating isolation: further comparing the effect of LFD testing for early release from self-isolation for COVID-19 cases
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Abstract
In a recent paper, we described how lateral flow device (LFD) testing might be used to reduce the amount of excess time individuals spend in isolation following confirmation of a COVID-19 infection. Through the work presented here, we look to expand upon this and explore in more detail the benefit that such an approach might provide. We use our previously described model to study scenarios through the metrics “proportion released still infectious”, “excess time spent in isolation” (time isolated while no longer infectious), and “time spent infectious after early release”. We also look to consider the effect on these metrics by comparing values obtained when a single negative LFD test is required for early release, versus requiring two and three sequential negative LFD tests. Results show that jointly employing self-isolation and LFD testing may deliver sizeable reductions to the proportion of individuals being release while still infection, the average amount of excess time spent in isolation by those no longer a public health threat, and the average amount of time spent infectious by those released early. These effects considered in conjunction could provide a considerable decrease in the public health risk posed by still infectious individuals being released back into the population by actively monitoring their infection status throughout their isolation period. Such an approach could also help lighten the impact incurred on the individual by reducing the amount of time spent in isolation while posing no further public health risk, in addition to alleviating pressures on the economy and in healthcare settings caused by mass isolation in times of high prevalence.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.25.22269818: (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:A caveat of an early release approach as opposed to a longer term fixed isolation period is that, due to the false negativity rate of LFD tests, individuals may be released while infectious where they might have recovered before the end of a longer term fixed isolation period. This is demonstrated in figure 2, where the shorter the …
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.25.22269818: (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:A caveat of an early release approach as opposed to a longer term fixed isolation period is that, due to the false negativity rate of LFD tests, individuals may be released while infectious where they might have recovered before the end of a longer term fixed isolation period. This is demonstrated in figure 2, where the shorter the minimum isolation period (i.e. earlier we start allowing LFD tests to be performed) the larger the proportion of infectious individuals released soon after. Nevertheless, we can also see that requiring additional negative tests decreases this effect. Ultimately, this is a trade-off between risk of infectious release and number of LFD negatives required for early release, which would have to be adjusted to suit risk appetite. Next, we consider the effect upon time spent infectious following release and excess time spent in isolation. We again see a sizeable decline in time spent infectious following release when LFD testing is being used in conjunction with isolation. This therefore translated into a decline in the potential that isolated individuals may go on to cause secondary cases following release. For 5-day fixed isolation, we see a 47.1% decrease against the scenario where individuals undergo 5 days of isolation and must produce one negative LFD result for early release – bumping up to a decrease of 75.0% and 82.8% when two and three LFD negatives are required respectively. Similar to the above, the fact that we require additional actions to ...
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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