Impact of community asymptomatic rapid antigen testing on covid-19 related hospital admissions: synthetic control study

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact of voluntary rapid testing for SARS-CoV-2 antigen in Liverpool city on covid-19 related hospital admissions. DESIGN: Synthetic control analysis comparing hospital admissions for small areas in the intervention population with a group of control areas weighted to be similar for past covid-19 related hospital admission rates and sociodemographic factors. SETTING: Liverpool city, UK, 6 November 2020 to 2 January 2021, under the intervention of Covid-SMART (systematic meaningful asymptomatic repeated testing) voluntary, open access supervised self-testing with lateral flow devices, compared with control areas selected from the rest of England. POPULATION: General population of Liverpool (n=498 042) and a synthetic control population from the rest of England. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Weekly covid-19 related hospital admissions for neighbourhoods in England. RESULTS: The introduction of community testing was associated with a 43% (95% confidence interval 29% to 57%) reduction (146 (96 to 192) in total) in covid-19 related hospital admissions in Liverpool compared with the synthetic control population (non-adjacent set of neighbourhoods with aggregate trends in covid-19 hospital admissions similar to Liverpool) for the initial period of intensive testing with military assistance in national lockdown from 6 November to 3 December 2020. A 25% (11% to 35%) reduction (239 (104 to 333) in total) was estimated across the overall intervention period (6 November 2020 to 2 January 2021), involving fewer testing centres, before England’s national roll-out of community testing, after adjusting for regional differences in tiers of covid-19 restrictions from 3 December 2020 to 2 January 2021. CONCLUSIONS: The city-wide pilot of community based asymptomatic testing for SARS-CoV-2 was associated with substantially reduced covid-19 related hospital admissions. Large scale asymptomatic rapid testing for SARS-CoV-2 could help reduce transmission and prevent hospital admissions.