The COVID-19 pandemic, ever since its global outbreak in 2020, has continued to wreak havoc. Governments across the world were compelled to enforce strict nation-wide lockdowns, while emphasising on social distancing and quarantining suspected people in order to slow down the spread of the virus. During this time, there was a massive increase in demand for COVID-19 test kits. However, given the limited supply, countries were finding it hard to test enough people. This study proposes an approach called Encoded Blending (EB) to increase the number of tests drastically, without increasing the number of test kits. EB modifies the pooled testing method; this has been followed by countries like Germany, Israel and South Korea for mass testing their citizens. EB has the potential to reduce test kits requirement by up to 85% and 80% in a population with 5% and 10% affected cases, respectively.

中文翻译：

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加速 COVID-19 测试：一种实验方法


自 2020 年在全球爆发以来，COVID-19 大流行持续造成严重破坏。世界各国政府被迫在全国范围内实施严格的封锁，同时强调保持社交距离并隔离疑似人员，以减缓病毒的传播。在此期间，对 COVID-19 检测试剂盒的需求大幅增加。然而，由于供应有限，各国发现很难对足够多的人进行检测。这项研究提出了一种称为编码混合（EB）的方法，可以在不增加测试套件数量的情况下大幅增加测试数量。 EB修改了汇总测试方法；德国、以色列和韩国等国家也纷纷效仿，对其公民进行大规模检测。在受影响病例数为 5% 和 10% 的人群中，EB 有可能分别减少高达 85% 和 80% 的检测试剂盒需求。