NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. health officials including Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, have called for so-called pooled testing to diagnose COVID-19 in order to test more people faster and cut down on mounting turnaround times for getting results.
Quest Diagnostics on Saturday received the first emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use pooled testing to help reduce its backlog of COVID-19 tests. The following is a description of how it works and the advantages and disadvantages of pooled testing.