Pooling is an insufficient strategy to avoid health care staff to patient transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

In order to save the limiting resource of RNA extraction kits we have evaluated the efficacy of pre-extraction sample pooling for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR screenings in medical staff. Unfortunately, in contrast to other reports, this strategy results in a loss of sensitivity between 25 to 71% compared to single sample testing, thus making the strategy inappropriate for the current setting.