Assessing the impact of a symptom-based mass screening and testing intervention during a novel infectious disease outbreak: The case of COVID-19

Yang Ge; Brian Kenneth McKay; Shengzhi Sun; Feng Zhang; Andreas Handel

The default is to ask individuals with symptoms to stay home and follow general precautionary 37 measures [8] . An alternative option is to implement MSTI, which requires testing anyone with 38 symptoms specific for the novel pathogen at a healthcare facility. individual is infected with the novel pathogen (probability ), we assume that they are correctly 49 identified and placed under isolation and treatment, where they have reduced transmission and 50 mortality risks, namely and . Importantly, if the health system is strained, those patients 51 arriving at the testing facility without being infected with the novel pathogen (probability 1 − ) 52 may become infected by another person in the testing facility. We denote this probability of 53 becoming infected with . Since these individuals test negative, we assume they will be sent 54 home and then have the same transmission and mortality risk as individuals asked to remain at 55 home. Thus, the total transmission potential for a person undergoing screening is = + 56