Detecting the re-emergent COVID-19 pandemic after elimination: modelling study of combined primary care and hospital surveillance.

CONCLUSIONS: This model-based analysis suggests that a surveillance system with a very high level of routine testing is probably required to detect an emerging or re-emerging SARS-CoV-2 outbreak within five weeks of a border control failure in a nation that had previously eliminated COVID-19. Nevertheless, there are plausible strategies to enhance testing yield and cost-effectiveness and potential supplementary surveillance systems such as the testing of town/city sewerage systems for the pandemic virus. PMID: 33119568 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: New Zealand Medical Journal - Category: General Medicine Tags: N Z Med J Source Type: research