Dr. Anthony Fauci said the White House is considering adopting a new coronavirus testing strategy that involves managing groups of people while using fewer resources, according to a report.
The chief infectious disease expert told the Washington Post on Thursday that health officials are having “intense discussions” about so-called “group tests.”
The method involves analyzing samples from many people together, allowing less resources to be used among large groups, and those who are infected could be isolated more quickly, the newspaper reported.
“Something is wrong,” said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases about the current approach. “I mean, you can make all the diagrams you want, but something doesn’t work.”
Fauci, a member of the White House task force on the pandemic, added: “What you must do is find the penetration of infected people into your society. And the only way to find out is to launch a wide network. “
Using the strategy, samples from, say, 20 people are combined into a single group that is tested. If it is negative, the researchers know that they can pass to another group of samples. If it is positive, only then would each person be evaluated.
Group testing would provide a better chance of finding asymptomatic people who may be quietly spreading the disease, the Washington Post reported.
“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 told the newspaper. “So it’s like, oh my god, how do you deal with that?”
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