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Effectiveness and policies analysis of pool testing method for COVID-19
Article publication date: 7 September 2021
Issue publication date: 17 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to figure out whether the pool testing method of SARS-CoV-2 for COVID-19 is effective and the optimal sample size is in one bunch. Additionally, since the infection rate was unknown at the beginning, this research aims to propose a multiple sampling approach that enables the pool testing method to be utilized successfully.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors verify that the pool testing method of SARS-CoV-2 for COVID-19 is effective under the situation of the shortage of nucleic acid detection kits based on probabilistic modeling. In this method, the testing is performed on several samples of the cases together as a bunch. If the test result of the bunch is negative, then it is shown that none of the cases in the bunch has been infected with the novel coronavirus. On the contrary, if the test result of the bunch is positive, then the samples are tested one by one to confirm which cases are infected.
Findings
If the infection rate is extremely low, while the same number of detection kits is used, the expected number of cases that can be tested by the pool testing method is far more than that by the one-by-one testing method. The pool testing method is effective only when the infection rate is less than 0.3078. The higher the infection rate, the smaller the optimal sample size in one bunch. IfN samples are tested by the pool testing method, while the sample size in one bunch isG, the number of detection kits required is in the interval (N/G,N).
Originality/value
This research proves that the pool testing method is not only suitable for the situation of the shortage of detection kits but also the situation of the overall or sampling detection for a large population. More importantly, it calculates the optimal sample size in one bunch corresponding to different infection rates. Additionally, a multiple sampling approach is proposed. In this approach, the whole testing process is divided into several rounds in which the sample sizes in one bunch are different. The actual infection rate is estimated gradually precisely by sampling inspection in each round.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to have received support from the Open Project of Hubei Provincial Key Discipline (Management Science and Engineering) of Jianghan University (No.ZDXK202101) and the Open Project of Institute of Wuhan Studies (No. IWHS20201002).
Citation
Liu, Y.,Chen, Y.,Xie, K. andLiu, J. (2023), "Effectiveness and policies analysis of pool testing method for COVID-19",Kybernetes, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 64-74.https://doi.org/10.1108/K-01-2021-0052
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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