Open AccessPooled testing efficiency increases with test frequency
Author(s) -
Ned Augenblick,
Jonathan T. Kolstad,
Ziad Obermeyer,
Ao Wang
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2105180119
Subject(s) - clearance , population , test strategy , pandemic , test (biology) , medicine , statistics , biology , computer science , disease , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty) , environmental health , mathematics , paleontology , software , urology , programming language
Significance Frequent mass testing can slow a rapidly spreading infectious disease by quickly identifying and isolating infected individuals from the population. One proposed method to reduce the extremely high costs of this testing strategy is to employ pooled testing, in which samples are combined and tested together using one test, and the entire pool is cleared given a negative test result. This paper demonstrates that frequent pooled testing of individuals with correlated risk—even given large uncertainty about infection rates—is particularly efficient. We conclude that frequent pooled testing using natural groupings is a cost-effective way to suppress infection risk in a pandemic.