ArticleScience advances2021
Test sensitivity is secondary to frequency and turnaround time for COVID-19 screening.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 585 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
585 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 1,273 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diagnostic value of BinaxNOW antigen card for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2.Bioengineered · 2023Pooled it
- Diagnostic accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 antigen test in the pediatric population: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Pediatrics and neonatology · 2023Pooled it
- Association Between Rapid Antigen Detection Tests and Real-Time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay for SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses.International journal of public health · 2023Pooled it
- Investigation of the diagnostic performance of the SARS-CoV-2 saliva antigen test: A meta-analysis.Journal of microbiology, immunology, and infection = Wei mian yu gan ran za zhi · 2022Pooled it
- Diagnostic accuracy of rapid point-of-care tests for diagnosis of current SARS-CoV-2 infections in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Performance of saline and water gargling for SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcriptase PCR testing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2022Pooled it
- Cost and cost-effectiveness of four different SARS-CoV-2 active surveillance strategies: evidence from a randomised control trial in Germany.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2023Trial
- A novel anterior nasal swab to detect respiratory viruses: a prospective study of diagnostic accuracy.BMC pediatrics · 2023Trial
- Leveraging AI for infectious disease modelling and public health decision making.BMC proceedings · 2026Article
- Mpox in Africa: one year continental response outcomes and way forward.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Nonenzymatic Detection of SARS-CoV‑2 RNA Using DNA Nanoswitches.ACS nano medicine · 2026Article
- Amplification of RNA for identification of Zika and HCV in whole blood.Science advances · 2026Article
- Coupled epidemiological and wastewater modeling at the urban scale: A case study for Munich.iScience · 2026Article
- A Dual-Port, Smartphone-Linked, Pocket-Size Fluorimeter for Rapid Molecular Diagnostic Assays at Point of Care.IEEE sensors journal · 2026Article
- Six Years of COVID-19: Lessons from Epidemiology, Vaccination Campaigns, Clinical Risk Stratification, and Thromboembolic Surveillance.Vaccines · 2026Review
- Viral Infection-Inspired Autonomous Detection of Fusion-Competent Viruses for Screening and Environmental Surveillance.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Emerging Multimodal Point-of-Care Diagnostic Strategies for Rapid Detection and Management of Respiratory Viruses: A State-of-the-Art Review.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Assessing the usefulness of digital contact tracing using real-world contact data.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A smartphone-powered decentralized microfluidic platform for sensitive CRISPR-based nucleic acid detection.Microsystems & nanoengineering · 2026Article
- Predictive triage for testing may improve control of a COVID-19 epidemic while reducing testing requirements.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
525 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public health crisis. Because SARS-CoV-2 can spread from individuals with presymptomatic, symptomatic, and asymptomatic infections, the reopening of societies and the control of virus spread will be facilitated by robust population screening, for which virus testing will often be central. After infection, individuals undergo a period of incubation during which viral titers are too low to detect, followed by exponential viral growth, leading to peak viral load and infectiousness and ending with declining titers and clearance. Given the pattern of viral load kinetics, we model the effectiveness of repeated population screening considering test sensitivities, frequency, and sample-to-answer reporting time. These results demonstrate that effective screening depends largely on frequency of testing and speed of reporting and is only marginally improved by high test sensitivity. We therefore conclude that screening should prioritize accessibility, frequency, and sample-to-answer time; analytical limits of detection should be secondary.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.