Mass testing to support sustained containment of COVID-19

Mass testing for covid-19 has great potential, if delivered to the right people at the right time with the right ongoing action, to bring benefit for containing the epidemic and to support the government in reopening economic activities [1-3]. As noted in a recent Nature Medicine Correspondence[4], China has implemented mass, community-wide testing actions which successfully helped to support sustained containment of covid-19. For instance, during the outbreak in Guangzhou, 18.7 million people were tested within three days [5]. Although the use of mass testing has not reached the agreement by all experts [6,7], the experience from China display its great value for covid-19 control and prevention. In this viewpoint, we describe six key elements of effective implementation of mass testing for covid-19 in the China context © 2021 THE AUTHOR(S)