Analysing group testing algorithms for COVID-19 surveillance and case identification in UK schools, universities, and health and social care settings

在Covid-19等大流行疾病的背景下，群体检测（也称为“汇集检测”或“批量检测”）提供了一种通过以不同方式将样本汇集在一起并对汇集的样本进行检测来识别大群体中受感染个体的方法。当感染人数（即流行率）相对较低时，群体检测算法可以比个体检测产生更大的效率提高。该项目将分析基于群体测试算法的策略是否以及如何在英国的学校、大学、养老院和医疗机构中有效地用于监测Covid-19的流行情况和病例识别（即筛查无症状者以识别受感染个体）。将密切关注所有实际相关问题：对公共卫生和教育损失的影响、资源需求/成本、在不断变化的（和地理上不同的）流行情况下实施不同战略的实际容易程度或困难程度、将汇集步骤纳入现有英国测试系统的可行性，以及道德/匿名要求。除了编写技术预印本和论文外，我们还将编写针对决策者的非技术报告，这些报告的编写方式便于没有受过数学或科学培训的人阅读，以帮助决策者确定实施哪些协议。我们最初的重点是学校和大学，之后我们将把研究扩展到健康和社会护理机构。

In the context of a pandemic disease such as Covid-19, group testing (also known as 'pooled testing' or 'batch testing') provides a way of identifying infected individuals in a large group, by pooling samples together in different ways and testing the pooled samples. Group-testing algorithms can yield large efficiency gains over individual testing, when the number of infected individuals (i.e., the prevalence) is relatively low. This project will analyse whether and how strategies based on group-testing algorithms may be effectively used for monitoring Covid-19 prevalence, and for case-identification (i.e., screening of asymptomatics to identify infected individuals), in UK schools, universities, care homes and health care settings. Close attention will be paid to all the practically relevant issues: the impacts on public health and education-loss, resource requirements/costs, the practical ease or difficulty of implementing different strategies in situations of changing (and geographically varying) prevalence, the feasibility of incorporating a pooling step into existing UK testing systems, and ethical/anonymity requirements. As well as producing technical preprints and papers, we will produce non-technical reports aimed at policymakers and written in a way accessible to those without mathematical or scientific training, to aid decision-makers in determining which protocols to implement. Our initial focus will be on schools and universities, and later we will extend our study to health and social care settings.