There is no test fairy. Keeping the curve flat, having gone through so much pain to flatten it, is going to require a level of infection reconnaissance we don’t yet know how to achieve. We’ll need improvements in manufacturing, we’ll need more people to do the tracing work a test can’t, and we’ll need to get more out of the materials we have.For the last of those goals, group testing is a promising way forward.
Jordan Ellenberg (@JSEllenberg) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin and the author of “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.”