Dr. Kirsten Schaffer:

I am not aware of whether such testing is used on a regular basis in Germany but as mentioned, there is some data published on pool testing and it seems to be working well. The idea is to increase capacity. Many specimens are pooled together and if a positive result comes back, it is then necessary to go back to the individual specimens to find out who was positive out of the pool. That is the principle behind pooled testing and it is definitely something that should be discussed and considered in order to increase testing capacity.