Analysis and Applications of Non-Adaptive and Adaptive Group Testing Methods for COVID-19

Cassidy Mentus; Martin Romeo; Christian DiPaola

Testing capacity for COVID-19 is still too scarce to meet the needs to meet global health needs. Conned populations are at particular risk for rapid contagion. They may include those who reside in facilities such as prisons, ships, military units and nursing homes. The goal of this paper is to increase the capacity to identify asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 by applying group testing methods. Current practice typically involves a one-patient-one-test strategy. Recently the potential to detect COVID-19 RNA in a mixture of samples from individuals has been validated [12] using RT-PCR. Group testing was rst studied mathematically in 1943 during World War II to test large groups of US servicemen for syphillis prior to deployment [3] . Now, just as in the WWII era, large scale testing is necessary.