When testing for a disease such as COVID-19, the standard method is individual testing: we take a sample from each individual and test these samples separately. An alternative is pooled testing (or "group testing"), where samples are mixed together in different pools, and those pooled samples are tested. When the prevalence of the disease is low and the accuracy of the test is fairly high, pooled testing strategies can be more efficient than individual testing. In this chapter, we discuss the mathematics of pooled testing and its uses during pandemics, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse some one- and two-stage pooling strategies under perfect and imperfect tests, and consider the practical issues in the application of such protocols.

翻译：当测试COVID-19等疾病时,标准方法就是个别测试:我们从每个人中抽取样本,并分别测试这些样本;另一种办法是集中测试(或“集体测试”),将样品混放在不同的集合体中,对这些集合体进行测试;当该疾病的流行率较低,测试的准确性相当高时,集合检测战略比个体检测更有效;在本章中,我们讨论集合检测的数学及其在流行病期间的使用,特别是COVID-19大流行期间的使用;我们在完美和不完善的测试中分析一些一阶段和两阶段集合战略,并在应用此类协议时考虑实际问题。