Have we been paying attention to the wrong variables when fighting the pandemic? Article in The Atlantic argues that the main driver of the pandemic has been superspreader events, where most places have been using a model of disease spread that fits the flu better. That means, among other things, that the testing and contact tracing regime most places are operating under is the wrong one.
Details are in the article, but a couple of points mentioned are that rapid testing is more important than accurate testing, and contact tracing should start by tracing backwards to figure out where the patient is most likely to have been infected and then trace forward from that event. Note here that the rapid tests are prone to false negatives, but PCR which is much slower has a problem with false positives in recovering patients.
Details are in the article, but a couple of points mentioned are that rapid testing is more important than accurate testing, and contact tracing should start by tracing backwards to figure out where the patient is most likely to have been infected and then trace forward from that event. Note here that the rapid tests are prone to false negatives, but PCR which is much slower has a problem with false positives in recovering patients.