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.