Related papers: Testing the efficacy of epidemic testing
In this paper, we provide insights on how much testing and social distancing is required to control COVID-19. To this end, we develop a compartmental model that accounts for key aspects of the disease: 1) incubation time, 2) age-dependent…
We propose a monitoring strategy for efficient and robust estimation of disease prevalence and case numbers within closed and enumerated populations such as schools, workplaces, or retirement communities. The proposed design relies largely…
Group testing can help maintain a widespread testing program using fewer resources amid a pandemic. In group testing, we are given $n$ samples, one per individual. These samples are arranged into $m < n$ pooled samples, where each pool is…
Group testing can save testing resources in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In group testing, we are given $n$ samples, one per individual, and arrange them into $m < n$ pooled samples, where each pool is obtained by mixing a…
In the last months, due to the emergency of Covid-19, questions related to the fact of belonging or not to a particular class of individuals (`infected or not infected'), after being tagged as `positive' or `negative' by a test, have never…
The COVID-19 crisis has shown that we can only prevent the risk of mass contagion through timely, large-scale, coordinated, and decisive actions. However, frequently the models used by experts [from whom decision-makers get their main…
When testing for infections, the standard method is to test each subject individually. If testing methodology is such that samples from multiple subjects can be efficiently combined and tested at once, yielding a positive results if any one…
Large scale disease screening is a complicated process in which high costs must be balanced against pressing public health needs. When the goal is screening for infectious disease, one approach is group testing in which samples are…
We consider a novel method to increase the reliability of COVID-19 virus or antibody tests by using specially designed pooled testings. Instead of testing nasal swab or blood samples from individual persons, we propose to test mixtures of…
Group testing is an efficient method for testing a large population to detect infected individuals. In this paper, we consider an efficient adaptive two stage group testing scheme. Using a straightforward analysis, we characterize the…
The mitigation of an infectious disease spreading has recently gained considerable attention from the research community. It may be obtained by adopting sanitary measurements social rules, together with an extensive vaccination campaign.…
Contact tracing is one of the most important tools for preventing the spread of infectious diseases, but as the experience of COVID-19 showed, it is also next-to-impossible to implement when the disease is spreading rapidly. We show how to…
The pandemic of COVID-19 has imposed tremendous pressure on public health systems and social economic ecosystems over the past years. To alleviate its social impact, it is important to proactively track the prevalence of COVID-19 within…
A contact-tracing strategy has been deemed necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19 following the relaxation of lockdown measures. Using an agent-based model, we explore one of the technology-based strategies proposed, a contact-tracing…
Group testing was conceived during World War II to identify soldiers infected with syphilis using as few tests as possible, and it has attracted renewed interest during the COVID-19 pandemic. A long-standing assumption in the probabilistic…
National and local governments have implemented a large number of policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Evaluating the effects of these policies, both on the number of Covid-19 cases as well as on other economic outcomes is a key…
Population-wide screening is a powerful tool for controlling infectious diseases. Group testing enables such screening despite limited resources. Viral concentration of pooled samples are often positively correlated, either because…
We study the impact of model parameter uncertainty on optimally mitigating the spread of epidemics. We capture the epidemic spreading process using a susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) epidemic model and consider testing for isolation as…
We develop a model of infection spread that takes into account the existence of a vulnerable group as well as the variability of the social relations of individuals. We develop a compartmentalized power-law model, with power-law connections…
An important component of every country's COVID-19 response is fast and efficient testing - to identify and isolate cases, as well as for early detection of local hotspots. For many countries, producing a sufficient number of tests has been…