Evaluation of Group Testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA

Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong; Daniel Klein; Brendan Hickey

We encourage further work into better approximate methods for obtaining prevalence estimates through more sophisticated pooling strategies, including using the virus concentration from qPCR (in either equally or unequally pooled samples). In addition, we see great potential of pooling for repeat testing of the same population of individuals on sequential days or weeks. Hospitals, government offices, corporations, and educational institutions, across which many individuals cannot work from home [2] , require self-isolation following positive results. This decreases the case counts below the population average on subsequent days and increases the efficiency of group testing strategies. Among individuals with low risk of serious complications, this methodology could use non-qPCR based assays. For instance, RT-LAMP assays [9, 18, 21, 10] might be particularly well-suited to rapid, first-line screening methodologies at scale. This strategy might also be applied to seropositivity screening once reliable tests are available for COVID-19, though rigorous testing of the pooling of serum is necessary to evaluate this more thoroughly.