There are multiple testing methods to ascertain an infection in an individual and they vary in their performances, cost and delay. Unfortunately, better performing tests are sometimes costlier and time consuming and can only be done for a small fraction of the population. On the other hand, greater number of individuals can be tested using a cheaper, rapid test, but may only provide less reliable results. In this work, we studied the interplay between cost and delay of the tests as well the additional advantages offered by partial and complete lockdowns. To understand the influence of different test strategies, we implemented them on realistic random social networks with a COVID-19-like epidemic in progression. Specifically, we compared the performance of two tests mimicking the characteristics of popular tests implemented for COVID-19 detection. We present procedures and intuitive understanding to ascertain the optimum combination of the tests to minimize the peak infection as well as total quarantine days when the number of tests is constrained by a fixed total budget.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 样流行病管理测试中的质量-数量权衡

有多种测试方法可以确定个人感染，它们的性能、成本和延迟各不相同。不幸的是，性能更好的测试有时成本更高、更耗时，并且只能针对一小部分人群进行。另一方面，可以使用更便宜、快速的测试对更多的人进行测试，但可能只能提供不太可靠的结果。在这项工作中，我们研究了成本和测试延迟之间的相互作用，以及部分和完全锁定提供的额外优势。为了了解不同测试策略的影响，我们在现实的随机社交网络上实施了这些策略，其中发生了类似 COVID-19 的流行病。具体来说，我们比较了两个测试的性能，这些测试模仿了为 COVID-19 检测实施的流行测试的特征。