1. Welfare-Maximizing Pooled Testing.
- Author
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Finster, Simon, Amador, Michelle González, Lock, Edwin, Cossio, Francisco Marmolejo, Micha, Evi, and Procaccia, Ariel
- Subjects
EPIDEMICS ,WELFARE economics ,NOROVIRUS diseases ,ALGORITHMS ,MACHINE theory - Abstract
In an epidemic, how should an organization with limited testing resources safely return to in-person activities after a lockdown? We study this question in a setting where the population is heterogeneous in both utility for in-person activities and probability of infection. During a period of re-integration, tests can be used as a certificate of non-infection, whereby those in negative tests are permitted to return to in-person activities for a designated amount of time. Under the assumption that samples can be pooled, the question of how to allocate a limited testing budget in the population to maximize the aggregate utility (i.e. welfare) of negatively-tested individuals who return to in-person activities is non-trivial, with a large space of potential testing allocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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