@article{de9c912097264bcebe34b17864599019,
title = "An imperfect test for a virus can Be worse than No test at all",
abstract = "This note studies the effect of the availability of a test for a virus on the public health of a population. It is shown by example that the existence of a freely available and moderately informative test for a virus may lower society's welfare in comparison to the case where no test exists or access to the test is restricted. In this setting, any test provided to any subset of agents who would find it optimal not to isolate absent the test improves welfare.",
keywords = "COVID-19, coronavirus, group testing, information design",
author = "Mark Whitmeyer",
note = "Funding Information: I thank Scott Delhommer, Rosemary Hopcroft, Vasudha Jain, Joseph Whitmeyer, and Thomas Wiseman for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This paper has also benefited from the comments of two anonymous referees and the editor, Davide Dragone. My research is funded by the German Research Foundation, Projekt‐ID 390685813. Funding Information: I thank Scott Delhommer, Rosemary Hopcroft, Vasudha Jain, Joseph Whitmeyer, and Thomas Wiseman for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This paper has also benefited from the comments of two anonymous referees and the editor, Davide Dragone. My research is funded by the German Research Foundation, Projekt-ID 390685813. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Authors. Health Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",
year = "2021",
month = jun,
doi = "10.1002/hec.4254",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "30",
pages = "1347--1360",
journal = "Health Economics (United Kingdom)",
issn = "1057-9230",
publisher = "John Wiley and Sons Ltd",
number = "6",
}