Table 2.

COVID-19 infections missed per 10,000 population tested, with and without pooling, under varied testing capacity, pooling and test sensitivity

Row	Prevalence of COVID-19 in those being tested	Number with disease per 10,000	Sensitivity of pooled test	Exhaustive testing of 10,000 individuals using 1/4 pooling		Exhaustive testing of 10,000 individuals using 1/16 pooling		Percentage cases missed with no pooling (test sensitivity of 99.9%)
				Col 1	Col 2	Col 3	Col 4	Same number of tests used and individuals tested as in column 1	Same number of tests used and individuals tested as in column 3
				Total tests needed	Percentage of cases missed	Total tests needed	Percentage of cases missed
1	0.05%	5	99.90%	2530	0%	715	1%	75%	93%
2	0.05%	5	95.00%	2529	5%	711	5%	75%	93%
3	0.05%	5	90.00%	2528	10%	707	10%	75%	93%
4	0.05%	5	80.00%	2526	20%	699	20%	75%	93%
5	0.05%	5	70.00%	2524	30%	691	30%	75%	93%
6	0.10%	10	99.90%	2550	0%	793	1%	75%	92%
7	0.10%	10	95.00%	2548	5%	786	6%	75%	92%
8	0.10%	10	90.00%	2546	10%	778	11%	75%	92%
9	0.10%	10	80.00%	2542	20%	762	21%	75%	92%
10	0.10%	10	70.00%	2538	30%	746	31%	75%	93%
11	1.00%	100	99.90%	2903	2%	2117	7%	71%	79%
12	1.00%	100	95.00%	2884	7%	2045	12%	71%	80%
13	1.00%	100	90.00%	2864	11%	1970	17%	71%	80%
14	1.00%	100	80.00%	2825	21%	1822	26%	72%	82%
15	1.00%	100	70.00%	2785	31%	1673	35%	72%	83%
16	3.00%	300	99.90%	3655	5%	4485	20%	63%	55%
17	3.00%	300	95.00%	3599	9%	4296	24%	64%	57%
18	3.00%	300	90.00%	3541	14%	4103	28%	65%	59%
19	3.00%	300	80.00%	3427	24%	3717	36%	66%	63%
20	3.00%	300	70.00%	3312	33%	3331	44%	67%	67%

Test specificity 99.9% for all scenarios