Pooling and Balking: Decisions on COVID-19 Testing

Long, Daniel Zhuoyu; Wang, Rowan; Zhang, Zijin

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3628484

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Although the high COVID-19 incidence at the municipal level was expected to be associated with a slowdown in sales due to the increased fears of being infected, it seems that supermarkets and online food retailers were crowned as COVID-19 winners during the lockdowns [ 33 ]. Greater numbers of people in stores and queues increase the likelihood of infection and make it challenging to ensure that social distancing restrictions are maintained, acting as a route for the spread for both clients and workers [ 34 , 35 ]. The evidence from this study suggests that close monitoring is essential for preventing the large-scale spread of the virus in such places.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated Antigen-Based Rapid Diagnostic Testing for Estimating the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Prevalence from the Perspective of the Workers’ Vulnerability before and during the Lockdown

Kotsiou

Pantazopoulos

Papagiannis

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Background: No previous study has investigated the SARS-CoV-2 prevalence and the changes in the proportion of positive results due to lockdown measures from the angle of workers’ vulnerability to coronavirus in Greece. Two community-based programs were implemented to evaluate the SARS-CoV-2 prevalence and investigate if the prevalence changes were significant across various occupations before and one month after lockdown. Methods: Following consent, sociodemographic, clinical, and job-related information were recorded. The VivaDiag™ SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test was used. Positive results confirmed by a real-time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction for SARS-COV-2. Results: Positive participants were more likely to work in the catering/food sector than negative participants before the lockdown. Lockdown restrictions halved the new cases. No significant differences in the likelihood of being SARS-CoV-2 positive for different job categories were detected during lockdown. The presence of respiratory symptoms was an independent predictor for rapid antigen test positivity; however, one-third of newly diagnosed patients were asymptomatic at both time points. Conclusions: The catering/food sector was the most vulnerable to COVID-19 at the pre-lockdown evaluation. We highlight the crucial role of community-based screening with rapid antigen testing to evaluate the potential modes of community transmission and the impact of infection control strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated Antigen-Based Rapid Diagnostic Testing for Estimating the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Prevalence from the Perspective of the Workers’ Vulnerability before and during the Lockdown

Kotsiou

Pantazopoulos

Papagiannis

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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show abstract

“…For example, Kumar (1981), Pieter and Martin (2008), Dike et al (2016), andSingh et al (2018) borrow standard queueing-theoretic notions such M/M/1, M/G/1, and busy-period analysis to investigate the efficiency of interventions pertaining to quarantine centers and vaccination. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred renewed interest in this topic (Alban et al, 2020;Cui et al, 2020;Long et al, 2020;Meares & Jones, 2020;Palomo et al, 2020). We use queueing theory differently than the works cited above.…”

Section: Production and Operations Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A queueing‐theoretic framework for evaluating transmission risks in service facilities during a pandemic

Kang

Doroudi

Delasay

et al. 2023

Production and Operations Management

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We propose a new modeling framework for evaluating the risk of disease transmission during a pandemic in small-scale settings driven by stochasticity in the arrival and service processes, that is, congestion-prone confined-space service facilities. We propose a novel metric, system-specific basic reproduction rate, inspired by the "basic reproduction rate" concept from epidemiology, which measures the transmissibility of infectious diseases. We derive our metric for various queueing models of service facilities by leveraging a novel queueing-theoretic notion: sojourn time overlaps. We showcase how our metric can be used to explore the efficacy of a variety of interventions aimed at curbing the spread of disease inside service facilities. Specifically, we focus on some prevalent interventions employed during the COVID-19 pandemic: limiting the occupancy of service facilities, protecting high-risk customers (via prioritization or designated time windows), and increasing the service speed (or limiting patronage duration). We discuss a variety of directions for adapting our transmission model to incorporate some more nuanced features of disease transmission, including heterogeneity in the population immunity level, varying levels of mask usage, and spatial considerations in disease transmission.

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“…Long et al. (2020) investigate whether public health officials should build fewer larger testing sites or more smaller testing sites in light of potential testees' balking behavior.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of Covid‐19 testing queues

Yang

Cui

Wang³

2022

Production and Operations Management

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In the event of a virus outbreak such as Covid‐19, testing is key. However, long waiting lines at testing facilities often discourage individuals from getting tested. This paper utilizes queueing‐game‐theoretic models to study how testing facilities should set scheduling and pricing policies to incentivize individuals to test, with the goal to identify the most cases of infection. Our findings are as follows. First, under the first‐in‐first‐out discipline (FIFO), the common practice of making testing free attracts the most testees but may not catch the most cases. Charging a testing fee may surprisingly increase case detection. Second, even though people who show symptoms are more likely to carry the virus, prioritizing these individuals over asymptomatic ones (another common practice) may let more cases go undetected than FIFO testing does. Third, we characterize the optimal scheduling and pricing policy. To maximize case detection, testing can be made free but one should also (partially) prioritize individuals with symptoms when testing demand is high and switch to (partially) prioritize the asymptomatic when testing demand is moderately low.

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Pooling and Balking: Decisions on COVID-19 Testing

Cited by 9 publications

References 23 publications

Repeated Antigen-Based Rapid Diagnostic Testing for Estimating the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Prevalence from the Perspective of the Workers’ Vulnerability before and during the Lockdown

Repeated Antigen-Based Rapid Diagnostic Testing for Estimating the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Prevalence from the Perspective of the Workers’ Vulnerability before and during the Lockdown

A queueing‐theoretic framework for evaluating transmission risks in service facilities during a pandemic

Design of Covid‐19 testing queues

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