September 8, 2020

Frequency and Accuracy of Proactive Testing for COVID-19

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Modeling and Prediction

• [Pre-print, not peer-reviewed]In the context of outbreak control on university campuses, Bergstrom et al. modeled the potential trade-offs of testing accuracy, frequency, and delay of results and found that even with a false negative rate of 30%, testing every second day can reduce R₀ from 2.5 to below 1 given a one day delay of results.
• Even if tests are done daily, a 2-day delay would not be able to lower R₀ below 1.

Bergstrom et al. (Sept 8, 2020). Frequency and Accuracy of Proactive Testing for COVID-19. Pre-print downloaded Sep 8 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.05.20188839