Linking Statistics With Testing Policy to Manage COVID-19 in the Community

© American Society for Clinical Pathology, 2020. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissionsoup.com..

OBJECTIVES: To determine the public health surveillance severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing volume needed, both for acute infection and seroprevalence.

METHODS: Required testing volumes were developed using standard statistical methods based on test analytical performance, disease prevalence, desired precision, and population size.

RESULTS: Widespread testing for individual health management cannot address surveillance needs. The number of people who must be sampled for public health surveillance and decision making, although not trivial, is potentially in the thousands for any given population or subpopulation, not millions.

CONCLUSIONS: While the contributions of diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 have received considerable attention, concerns abound regarding the availability of sufficient testing capacity to meet demand. Different testing goals require different numbers of tests and different testing strategies; testing strategies for national or local disease surveillance, including monitoring of prevalence, receive less attention. Our clinical laboratory and diagnostic infrastructure are capable of incorporating required volumes for many local, regional, and national public health surveillance studies into their current and projected testing capacity. However, testing for surveillance requires careful design and randomization to provide meaningful insights.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:154

Enthalten in:

American journal of clinical pathology - 154(2020), 2 vom: 07. Juli, Seite 142-148

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Hilborne, Lee H [VerfasserIn]
Wagner, Zachary [VerfasserIn]
Cabreros, Irineo [VerfasserIn]
Brook, Robert H [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

COVID-19
Coronavirus
Journal Article
Laboratory
Public health
SARS-CoV-2
Surveillance

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 17.07.2020

Date Revised 29.03.2024

published: Print

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1093/ajcp/aqaa099

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM310996538