‘Pool testing’ to combat Covid on campus grows popular in California schools

‘Pool testing’ to combat Covid on campus grows popular in California schools

With pool testing, nasal swabs from up to 25 asymptomatic students are submitted together for a single PCR test. … Another downside is that if the pool is large, the test may be less sensitive and miss a positive case, said Dr. Edwin Monuki, [professor and] chair of the Department of Pathology at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. “For this reason, pooling should only be considered in conjunction with a sensitive high-quality test,” he said.