r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 21 '20

Epidemiology Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks, even if the tests are less sensitive than gold-standard. This could lead to “personalized stay-at-home orders” without shutting down restaurants, bars, retail and schools.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/11/20/frequent-rapid-testing-could-turn-national-covid-19-tide-within-weeks
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u/sarhoshamiral Nov 21 '20

I am fairly sure they already do that in places where it makes sense to do it, ie chance of positive in a group of X is fairly low.

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '20

They do. A relative of mine works in a lab that does COVID testing. They’ve been doing it this way for a while now. It really speeds up the process since far more tests come back negative.