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Why random testing is the road back to normal

An urgent program to collect up-to-date data about the whole community is the only way to know if it is safe to lift the costly lockdown without the virus resurging.

Nicholas Fisher and Dennis Trewin
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The media is awash with data about confirmed cases of COVID-19, the number of people who have died from COVID-19-related illnesses, and how many appear to have recovered.

What about the data we need to inform decision-making, but which we haven’t got – the known unknowns?

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Nicholas Fisher is a former chief research scientist in statistics in CSIRO and a former president of the Statistical Society of Australia.
Dennis Trewin was the Australian Statistician from 2000 to 2007 and is a former president of the Statistical Society of Australia.
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    Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/why-random-testing-is-the-road-back-to-normal-20200413-p54j9e