Abstract

This paper argues for the regular testing of people in groups that are more likely to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2, to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and resume economic activity. We call this ‘stratified periodic testing’. It is ‘stratified’ as it is based on at-risk groups, and ‘periodic’ as everyone in the group is tested at regular intervals. We argue that this is a better use of scarce testing resources than ‘universal random testing’, as has been recently discussed globally. We find that, under reasonable assumptions and allowing for false negative results 30 per cent of the time, 17 per cent of a subgroup would need to be tested each day to lower the effective reproduction number R from 2.5 to 0.75, under stratified periodic testing. Using the same assumptions the universal random testing rate would need to be 27 per cent (as opposed to 7 per cent as argued by Romer (2020b)). We obtain this rate of testing using a corrected method for calculating the impact of an infectious person on others, and allowing for asymptomatic cases. We also find that the effect of one day’s delay between testing positive and self-isolating is similar to having a test that is 30 per cent less accurate.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19测试的可行策略：分层定期测试而不是通用随机测试

摘要

本文主张对人群中的人进行常规检测，以使其更可能暴露于SARS-CoV-2，以减少COVID-19的传播并恢复经济活动。我们称之为“分层定期测试”。由于它是基于高风险人群，因此是“分层的”，而对于该组中的每个人，都将定期对其进行“定期”的测试。我们认为，与最近普遍讨论的“通用随机测试”相比，这是对稀缺测试资源的更好利用。我们发现，在合理的假设下，考虑到30％的假阴性结果，每天需要对17％的亚组进行测试，以在分层定期测试中将有效繁殖数R从2.5降低到0.75。使用相同的假设，通用随机测试率将需要为27％（Romer（2020b）则为7％）。我们使用校正的方法来计算出这种检测率，该方法用于计算感染者对他人的影响并考虑到无症状的情况。我们还发现，在测试阳性和自我隔离之间延迟一天的影响类似于进行准确性低30％的测试。