Mass testing for discovery and control of COVID-19 outbreaks in adult social care: an observational study and cost-effectiveness analysis of 14 805 care homes in England.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

We retrospectively evaluated the impact of COVID-19 testing among residents and staff in social care homes in England.

Methods

We obtained 80 million reported PCR and lateral flow device (LFD) test results, from 14 805 care homes (residents and staff) in England, conducted between October 2020 and March 2022. These testing data were then linked to care home characteristics, test costs and 24 500 COVID-19-related deaths of residents. We decomposed the mechanism of outbreak mitigation into outbreak discovery and outbreak control and used Poisson regressions to investigate how reported testing intensity was associated with the size of outbreak discovered and to uncover its association with outbreak control. We used negative binomial regressions to determine the fac

SUBMITTER: Chen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11962772 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature