Performance of Existing and Novel Symptom- and Antigen Testing-Based COVID-19 Case Definitions in a Community Setting

Point-of-care antigen tests are an important tool for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) detection, yet are less clinically sensitive than real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), affecting their efficacy as screening procedures. Our goal in this analysis was to see whether we could improve this sensitivity by considering antigen test results in combination with other relevant information, namely exposure status and reported symptoms. In November 2020, we collected 3,419 paired upper respiratory specimens tested by RT-PCR and the Abbott BinaxNOW (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois) antigen test at 2 community testing sites in Pima County, Arizona. We used symptom, exposure, and antigen-testing data to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of various symptom definitions in predicting RT-PCR positivity. Our analysis yielded 6 novel multisymptom case definitions with and without antigen test results, the best of which overall achieved a Youden's J index of 0.66, as compared with 0.53 for antigen testing alone. Using a random forest as a guide, we show that this definition, along with our others, does not lose the ability to generalize well to new data despite achieving optimal performance in our sample. Our methodology is broadly applicable, and our code is publicly available to aid public health practitioners in developing or fine-tuning their own case definitions.

Automated summary

This study aims to improve the sensitivity of antigen tests by combining antigen test results with other relevant information, such as exposure status and reported symptoms. The analysis resulted in six novel multisymptom case definitions, which showed better performance in predicting RT-PCR positivity compared to antigen testing alone.