Amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of COVID-19 tests
A computational analysis of COVID-19 tests suggests that, in order to minimize the number of infections in a population, the amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of the tests that are used. Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Sonipat, India, and Sandeep Krishna of the National Centre for Biological Sciences TIFR, Bangalore, India, present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
Different states in India use different mixes of two main tests for COVID-19: a very sensitive reverse-transcriptase polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) test and a less sensitive rapid antigen test. Traditional thinking holds that an all-RT-PCR approach will ultimately lead to fewer overall infections. While RT-PCR tests are more sensitive than rapid antigen tests, they are more expensive and do not provide results immediately. Therefore, the precise mix of tests needed to optimize outcomes while accounting for cost constraints has been unclear.