Adaptive targeted infectious disease testing

Abstract

We show how to efficiently use costly testing resources in an epidemic, when testing outcomes can be used to make quarantine decisions. If the costs of false quarantine and false release exceed the cost of testing, the optimal myopic testing policy targets individuals with an intermediate likelihood of being infected. A high cost of false release means that testing is optimal for individuals with a low probability of infection, and a high cost of false quarantine means that testing is optimal for individuals w…