Lessons Learned from Pooled Testing of Covid-19

The Coronavirus pandemic set off a flurry of research and reports on a wide range of concerns for the health sciences.One of these concerns has been an interest in effective monitoring, tracing, and testing of the disease on a mass scale.The acute and emergent nature of the crisis precipitated a need not only for greater monitoring capacity, but one which could scale at a mass level and at a reduced cost.The reduction of costs was crucial not only for greater efficiencies as capacity was taxed, but also for prevalence testing in low income and developing countries.This paper offers a review of the pooled testing literature around the Covid-19 pandemic, identifying developments in the field as well as paths forward for new variants or future public health emergencies.