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Testing and Isolation Efficacy: Insights from a Simple Epidemic Model by Gharouni, Ali; Abdelmalek, F. M.; Earn, David J. D.; Dushoff, Jonathan; Bolker, Benjamin M. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Testing and Isolation Efficacy: Insights from a Simple Epidemic Model about?

Testing individuals for pathogens can affect the spread of epidemics. Understanding how individual-level processes of sampling and reporting test results can affect community- or population-level spread is a dynamical modeling question. The effect of testing processes on epidemic dynamics depends on factors underlying implementation, particularly testing intensity and on whom testing is focused. Here, we use a simple model to explore how the individual-level effects of testing might directly impact population-level spread. Our model development was motivated by the COVID-19 epidemic, but has generic epidemiological and testing structures. To the classic SIR framework we have added a per capita testing intensity, and compartment-specific testing weights, which can be adjusted to reflect different testing emphases -- surveillance, diagnosis, or control. We derive an analytic expression for the relative reduction in the basic reproductive number due to testing, test-reporting and related isolation behaviours. Intensive testing and fast test reporting are expected to be beneficial at the community level because they can provide a rapid assessment of the situation, identify hot spots, a

Author

Gharouni, Ali; Abdelmalek, F. M.; Earn, David J. D.; Dushoff, Jonathan; Bolker, Benjamin M.

Published

2021

Language

EN