- Published
- 01 December 2020
- Journal article
Drive-through testing for SARS-CoV-2 in symptomatic health and social care workers and household members: an observational cohort study
- Authors
- Source
- Thorax
Abstract
The requirement for health and social care workers to self-isolate when they or their household contacts develop symptoms consistent with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can lead to critical staff shortages in the context of a pandemic. In this report, we describe the implementation of a drive-through testing service in a single National Health Service region in Scotland. From 17 March 2020 to 11 April 2020, 1890 SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription PCR assay (RT-PCR) tests were performed. 22% of tests were positive. Allowing the remaining 78% of staff to return to work within 24 hours was estimated to save over 8000 working days during the peak pandemic period.
Rights
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Cite as
Parcell, B., Brechin, K., Allstaff, S., Park , M., Third, W., Bean, S., Hind, C., Farmer, R., Chalmers, J. & Chandler, D. 2020, 'Drive-through testing for SARS-CoV-2 in symptomatic health and social care workers and household members: an observational cohort study', Thorax, 75(12), pp. 1109-1111. https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-215128