COVID SAFE: COVID-19 Screening Assessment for Exposure

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in close to 10,000,000 reported cases worldwide, including more than 2,000,000 aggregated reported cases and 120,000 deaths in the United States. Initial efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic were aimed at testing symptomatic individuals, implementing stay-in-place orders, and at increasing hospital capacity to meet surge demands. While nations continue to confront the current crisis, plans for the future must be put in place tools to enhance our ability to conduct effective screening, containment, and case management.

Widespread COVID-19 testing is needed to safely and effectively reopen schools and businesses across the US. However, currently approved testing options require reagents that are limited in supply, severely hindering scalability. Emerging evidence indicates that saliva testing with the option of at-home sample collection can accurately identify COVID-19 viral infection. Additional diagnostic testing options will continue to increase patient access. Moreover, this approach provides an option for the easy, safe and convenient collection of samples required for testing without traveling to a doctor's office, hospital, or testing site. Collection by the patient also reduces exposure of health care workers to the virus and preserves limited personal protective equipment.

With access to expanded testing, health systems and universities will need to test alternative methods to manage COVID-19 spread while balancing program effectiveness, feasibility, costs, and scalability. Insights from the field of behavioral economics offer promise for designing and sustaining these kinds of policies. For these reasons, the investigators propose to evaluate the implementation of a COVID-19 screening program that uses saliva-based testing.