Pooling in a Pod: A Strategy for COVID-19 Testing to Facilitate a Safe Return to School
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted widespread closures of primary and secondary schools. Routine testing of asymptomatic students and staff members, as part of a comprehensive mitigation program, can help schools open safely. “Pooling in a pod” is a public health surveillance strategy whereby testing cohorts (pods) are based on social relationships and physical proximity. Pooled testing provides a single laboratory test result for the entire pod, rather than a separate result for each person in the pod. During the 2020-2021 school year, an independent preschool–grade 12 school in Washington, DC, used pooling in a pod for weekly on-site point-of-care testing of all staff members and students. Staff members and older students self-collected anterior nares samples, and trained staff members collected samples from younger students. Overall, 12 885 samples were tested in 1737 pools for 863 students and 264 staff members from November 30, 2020, through April 30, 2021. The average pool size was 7.4 people. The average time from sample collection to pool test result was 40 minutes. The direct testing cost per person per week was $24.24, including swabs. During the study period, 4 surveillance test pools received positive test results for COVID-19. A post-launch survey found most parents (90.3%), students (93.4%), and staff members (98.8%) were willing to participate in pooled testing with confirmatory tests for pool members who received a positive test result. The proportion of students in remote learning decreased by 62.2% for students in grades 6-12 ( P < .001) and by 92.4% for students in preschool to grade 5 after program initiation ( P < .001). Pooling in a pod is a feasible, cost-effective surveillance strategy that may facilitate safe, sustainable, in-person schooling during a pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.24.21254230: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: This project was conducted as an institutional review board-approved study with consent from parents and staff, and assent by students. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. 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 TrialIde…
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.24.21254230: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: This project was conducted as an institutional review board-approved study with consent from parents and staff, and assent by students. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. 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.
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