Nutritional Advice El Mondo
Objectives:
Making testing available to everyone and tracing contacts might be the gold standard to control COVID-19. Many countries including the United Kingdom have relied on the symptom-based test and trace strategy in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The effectiveness of a test and trace strategy based on symptoms has been questionable and has failed to meet testing and tracing needs. This is further exacerbated by it not being delivered at the point of care, leading to rising cases and deaths. Increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United Kingdom despite performing the highest number of tests in Europe suggest that symptom-based testing and contact tracing might not be effective as a control strategy. Therefore, this review article has been conducted.
The primary objective of this review is to compare mass testing and contact tracing with the conventional test and trace method in the suppression of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infections.
The secondary objective is to determine the proportion of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases reported during mass testing interventions.
Study design:
This review article included 35 articles with a sample size of nearly 1 million participants.
Of the 35 studies, 12 (34%) were models, 1 (3%) was a cohort study and 22 (63%) were cross-sectional studies.
Results and conclusions:
The investigators found a 76.9% [10/13, 95% CI = 46.2% to 95.0%, p= 0.09] majority vote in favor of the intervention under the primary objective.
The investigators found the overall proportion of asymptomatic cases among those who tested positive and in the tested sample populations under the secondary objective was 40.7% [1084/2661, 95% CI = 38.9% to 42.6%] and 0.0% [1084/9,942,878, 95% CI = 0.0% to 0.0%], respectively.
The investigators concluded there is low-level but promising evidence that mass testing and contact tracing could be more effective in bringing the COVID-19 virus under control and even more effective if combined with social distancing and face coverings. The conventional test and trace method should be superseded by decentralized and regular mass rapid testing and contact tracing, championed by general practitioner surgeries and low-cost community services.
Original title:
Mass Testing With Contact Tracing Compared to Test and Trace for the Effective Suppression of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom: Systematic Review by Mbwogge M.
Link:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33857269/
Additional information of El Mondo:
Find more information/studies on coronavirus right here.