Universal Screening with Sample Pooling in Preoperative Patients as Long-term Strategy in the COVID-19 Pandemic

摘要

Universal screening for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) may be critical for protecting vulnerable patients and the operating rooms, especially if the prevalence of asymptomatic patients is expected to be high.1 A recent study on the screening of the San Francisco Bay Area showed that in 292 pools comprising 2,888 individual samples, the positive rate for SARS-CoV-2 was 0.07% (2/2,888).2 Similarly, Ben-Ami et al.3 reported that of a total of 26,576 samples with 8 sample pooling from asymptomatic individuals, 31 (0.12%) were SARSCoV-2 positive in Israel. However, there are limited data on the pooling strategy for universal screening of SARS-CoV-2 in other clinical settings or geographic regions.