Fig 3. Screening the whole population.

Parameters: sensitivity p = 0.99, false positive rate q = 0.01, test duration 5h, averaged over 10 runs. Optimal (max.) pool size each (c.f. Fig 2); for ir = 1% as in (B)–(D) we obtain individual testing: 1; 2-level pooling: 12; binary splitting: 32; recursive binary splitting: 32; Purim: 32, Sobel-R1: 31. (A): Expected number and standard deviation of identified cases per test for different infection rates with optimised pool sizes; right: zoom-in for small infection rates, (B): Expected time in days and standard deviation to test the whole population depending on daily test capacity per 1m population, infection rate 1%; right: zoom-in excl. individual testing, (C): Expected true positives and false positives for the six methods (pop. 100,000), (D): Numbers of identified cases and quarantined individuals (pop. 100,000).