a new study, published in the journal health affairs , saw researchers from the institute for health policy in colombo, sri lanka, turn to data to measure the impact of testing on covid-19 transmissibility between march and june 2020. they also studied mobility data, to see how much people were moving around, as well as other factors such as masking mandates, national school closures and even humidity and temperature.
“the authors found that among interventions, testing intensity had the greatest influence: a tenfold increase in the ratio of tests to new cases reported reduced average covid-19 transmission by nine percent,” a press release on the study states. the studies focused on polymerase chain reaction (pcr) testing , considered more accurate, though more time-consuming, than rapid antigen testing.
advertisement
“our results imply that in ‘flattening the curve’ strategies, which originate in cdc’s pandemic influenza planning, critical care capacity is the wrong threshold to target for covid-19,” said the researchers. (criticial care capacity involves intenstive care units, hospital supplies, and things like patient ventilator units). “at high incidence rates, even the wealthiest nations, such as the u.s.a., u.k., and qatar, cannot expand testing and tracing fast enough (or they give up altogether) to achieve epidemic control.”
writing in maclean’s, patricia treble puts a spotlight on nova scotia’s “magnficient” handling of the pandemic. while experts laud the province’s proactive approach to school closures, public health messaging and community buy-in, nova scotia also invested in rapid testing. pop-up rapid testing centres sprang up and community volunteers with medical oversight were trained to perform rapid antigen tests, taking some burden off of provicinal labs. those who tested positive would be then line up for a pcr test at the same location, with results available in 24 hours.
advertisement
according to health canada, more than 11 million people have been tested for covid-19 in canada as of dec. 2, with a test rate of about 310,004 per one million people.