ArticleBMJ open2021
Role of efficient testing and contact tracing in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic: a network modelling study.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- The influence of case factors and system factors on the timeliness of testing and contact tracing for COVID-19 in The Netherlands.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- Mathematical Contact Tracing Models for the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review of the Literature.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Article
- Improving and Extending STERGM Approximations Based on Cross-Sectional Data and Tie Durations.Journal of computational and graphical statistics : a joint publication of American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Interface Foundation of North America · 2024Article
- Factors associated with delayed diagnosis of symptomatic adult COVID-19 cases presenting to primary care: a population-wide study during transition from Delta to Omicron BA.1 in Singapore.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2023Article
- Contact network analysis of COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak in urban China -based on 2,050 confirmed cases in Xi'an, China.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Impact of Government Intervention in Response to Coronavirus Disease 2019.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Molecular detection of SARS-COV-2 in exhaled breath at the point-of-need.Biosensors & bioelectronics · 2022Article
- Use of clinical data to augment healthcare worker contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study quantified how the efficiency of testing and contact tracing impacts the spread of COVID-19. The average time interval between infection and quarantine, whether asymptomatic cases are tested or not, and initial delays to beginning a testing and tracing programme were investigated.
settingWe developed a novel individual-level network model, called CoTECT (Testing Efficiency and Contact Tracing model for COVID-19), using key parameters from recent studies to quantify the impacts of testing and tracing efficiency. The model distinguishes infection from confirmation by integrating a 'T' compartment, which represents infections confirmed by testing and quarantine. The compartments of presymptomatic (E), asymptomatic (I), symptomatic (Is), and death with (F) or without (f) test confirmation were also included in the model. Three scenarios were evaluated in a closed population of 3000 individuals to mimic community-level dynamics. Real-world data from four Nordic countries were also analysed. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Simulation result: total/peak daily infections and confirmed cases, total deaths (confirmed/unconfirmed by testing), fatalities and the case fatality rate. Real-world analysis: confirmed cases and deaths per million people.
results(1) Shortening the duration between Is and T from 12 to 4 days reduces infections by 85.2% and deaths by 88.8%. (2) Testing and tracing regardless of symptoms reduce infections by 35.7% and deaths by 46.2% compared with testing only symptomatic cases. (3) Reducing the delay to implementing a testing and tracing programme from 50 to 10 days reduces infections by 35.2% and deaths by 44.6%. These results were robust to sensitivity analysis. An analysis of real-world data showed that tests per case early in the pandemic are critical for reducing confirmed cases and the fatality rate.
conclusionsReducing testing delays will help to contain outbreaks. These results provide policymakers with quantitative evidence of efficiency as a critical value in developing testing and contact tracing strategies.
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