Universal screening for SARS‐CoV‐2 infection (searches up to 26 May 2020)
Citation: Viswanathan M, Kahwati L, Jahn B, et al. Universal screening for SARS‐CoV‐2 infection: a rapid review. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2020;(9):CD013718.
What is this? Universal screening, such as asking people about symptoms, taking their temperature or doing a quick saliva test, has been suggested as a way to detect people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19.
In this Cochrane rapid review, the authors searched for research into the effects of universal screening for SARS-CoV-2 in various community settings. They restricted their searches to articles published in English and Chinese and did their most recent searches on 26 May 2020. They included 17 cohort studies and 3 modelling studies that reported on screening test accuracy and 2 modelling studies of the effectiveness of universal screening.
What was found: At the time of this review, the evidence from the included studies showed that screening strategies for detecting people with SARS-CoV-2 are not accurate. Strategies that have been assessed missed many people who have the virus and incorrectly identified people as being infected even though they did not have the virus.