Epidemiological and Economic Efficiency of Mass PCR-testing of the Population in the Russian Federation during the COVID-19 epidemic

Relevance Aims. Development of an algorithm for calculating the epidemiological and economic effectiveness of Mass PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection in the Russian Federation during 2020–2022.

Materials and methods. Rospotrebnadzor Statistical form №1035 «Monitoring the number of cases of coronavirus infection, including community-acquired pneumonia, and deaths» for 2020- 2022. Circulating variants SARS-CoV-2 is obtained from VGARus. PCR-testing results for SARS-CoV-2 infection were obtained from the Russian information system «SOLAR», demographic data - from Rosstat (Federal State Statistics Service). The base reproductive number (R0) used in the study was: Wuhan + Alpha – 2.74, Delta – 5.02, Omicron SARS-CoV-2 – 9.5. The average cost of one completed case of a new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in hospitalization or outpatient treatment for the Russian Federation: asymptomatic and mild in the outpatient option – 28,000 rubles, moderate illness – 122,000 rubles. Severe, critical and moderate illness – 216,000 rubles. Statistical analysis was performed using standard methods of variation statistics. SciPy, Pandas, Statsmodels were used for statistical processing of the results obtained and data visualization.

Results. During the period 2020–2022, mass PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 infections in Russian Federation has prevented an estimated between 4.83 million to 1.58 billion COVID-19 cases. The total damage averted from COVID-19 for 2020 to 2022 through mass PCR-testing of the population in the Russian Federation and subsequent isolation, amounted to 3,013 to 10,323 billion rubles.

Conclusion. Mass PCR-testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection is highly cost-effective and has reduced the averted damage from COVID-19 by 1.8–3.8 times in 2020-2022.

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