Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Friday that the White House coronavirus task force is “seriously considering” group testing for Covid-19.
The proposal is still in the discussion stage, and is not expected to be announced at the task force meeting today, Fauci told CNN. Dr. Fauci first mentioned the discussions in an interview with The Washington Post published on Friday morning.
“Something is wrong,” Fauci said of the nation’s current approach in an interview with The Post. “I mean, you can make all the diagrams you want, but something doesn’t work.”
This is what “group test” means: The strategy works by mixing multiple samples in a “batch” or group, and then analyzing the pooled sample with a diagnostic test.
In this way, you can evaluate a group of, for example, 25 people with one test instead of 25 separate diagnostic tests.
If the test turns negative, you have eliminated 25 people with a test. If you get a positive result, go back and test people individually.
Fauci’s comments come after the US Food and Drug Administration recommended such a strategy earlier this month to companies looking to do mass screening of people for coronavirus. And last month, local health authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan said they managed to screen more than 9 million people with 6.6 million tests. Chinese media reported that Wuhan used a pooled evidence approach.
“What you have to do is find the penetration of infected people into your society,” Fauci told The Washington Post. “And the only way to find out is to launch a wide network.”
Fauci also told The Post that the high levels of asymptomatic spread of the Coronavirus are forcing health experts to rethink how to tackle mitigation of the spread of Covid-19.
“We now know that the level of virus in an asymptomatic person is almost equal to the level of virus in someone who has symptoms,” Fauci said. “So it’s like, oh my god, how do you deal with that?”
Fauci stressed to CNN that this is not a new policy, but it is under consideration.
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