While we still have more to learn about the virus, there is evidence that infected people may be able to transmit infection to others before they develop symptoms.
More testing will give us a better picture of the coronavirus spread and its slowdown
We know COVID-19 can manifest with a broad range of potentially minor symptoms, so this approach should help highlight milder cases of infection.īut even this level of testing might not be enough to provide early warning of and prevent an impending outbreak. Anybody in Australia experiencing symptoms of respiratory infection can now get a test. Last week, testing criteria were broadened even further. The decision to test someone is guided by testing criteria, which in Australia are set at the state and territory level. So testing efforts are concentrated where they’re most likely to aid control efforts. Testing is a finite resource: health services need physical kits to conduct the tests, and laboratories need time and people to analyse samples. What might trigger a return to 'normal'? Why our coronavirus exit strategy is. To be confident transmission doesn’t increase as distancing measures are lifted, we will need to test broadly, and strategically, across the population. For example, if testing is restricted only to patients in hospital, less severe cases won’t be counted. The differences in reported case numbers between different countries can be at least partially attributed to different levels of testing. Testing provides our window onto the extent of infection in a population: where we look determines what we see. Sentinel surveillance – or testing randomly in the community – could help us with this. To prevent this, we need to ensure any new infections in the community are detected promptly, and their contacts traced to contain transmission as early as possible. The Conversation UK receives funding from these organisations University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU. Katherine Gibney receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). Jodie McVernon receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Government Departments of Health and Foreign Affairs and Trade Nic Geard receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Government Departments of Health and Foreign Affairs and Trade. NHMRC early career fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, The University of Melbourne
Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne Senior Research Fellow, Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, The University of Melbourne
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