Replies

Mass testing campaigns are an alternative way to identify infectious individuals and allow targeting of interventions without much added burden to those uninfectious (12). However, they have been limited until recently by the dependence on Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for the diagnosis of a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Now the hammer!

Funding

Slovak government and Slovak Minister of Health.

Stefan Flasche is supported by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society (Grant number 208812/Z/17/Z). Sebastian Funk, Sam Abbott and Katharine Sherratt are supported by the Wellcome Trust (210758/Z/18/Z). Kevin van Zandvoort is supported by Elrha’s Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme, which aims to improve health outcomes by strengthening the evidence base for public health interventions in humanitarian crises. The R2HC programme is funded by the UK Government (DFID), the Wellcome Trust, and the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

The following funding sources are acknowledged as providing funding for the working group authors.

BBSRC LIDP (BB/M009513/1: DS). This research was partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-001754: MQ; INV-003174: KP, MJ, YL; NTD Modelling Consortium OPP1184344: CABP, GFM; OPP1180644: SRP; OPP1183986: ESN). BMGF (OPP1157270: KA). DFID/Wellcome Trust (Epidemic Preparedness Coronavirus research programme 221303/Z/20/Z: CABP). EDCTP2 (RIA2020EF-2983-CSIGN: HPG). ERC Starting Grant (#757699: MQ).

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme project EpiPose (101003688: KP, MJ, PK, RCB, WJE, YL).

This research was partly funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project ‘RECAP’ managed through RCUK and ESRC (ES/P010873/1: AG, CIJ, TJ). HDR UK (MR/S003975/1: RME). MRC (MR/N013638/1: NRW). Nakajima Foundation (AE).

This research was partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) using UK aid from the UK Government to support global health research.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK Department of Health and Social Care (16/136/46: BJQ; 16/137/109: BJQ, FYS, MJ, YL;
Health Protection Research Unit for Immunisation NIHR200929: NGD; Health Protection Research Unit for Modelling Methodology HPRU-2012-10096: TJ; NIHR200908: RME; NIHR200929: FGS, MJ; PR-OD-1017-20002: AR, WJE). Royal Society

(Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship: RL; RP\EA\180004: PK). UK DHSC/UK Aid/NIHR (PR-OD-1017-20001: HPG). UK MRC (MC_PC_19065 Covid 19: Understanding the dynamics and drivers of the COVID-19 epidemic using real-time outbreak analytics: AG, NGD, RME, SC, TJ, WJE, YL; MR/P014658/1: GMK). Authors of this research receive funding from UK Public Health Rapid Support Team funded by the United Kingdom Department of Health and Social Care (TJ). Wellcome Trust (206250/Z/17/Z: AJK, TWR; 206471/Z/17/Z: OJB;

208812/Z/17/Z: SC; 210758/Z/18/Z: JDM, JH, NIB, SA, SRM). No funding (AMF, AS, CJVA, DCT, JW, KEA, YWDC).