The chance of detecting the virus that causes COVID-19 increases with more frequent testing, no matter the type of test, according to a new study. The tests can achieve 98% sensitivity if deployed at least every three days.

It sometimes seems a million doesn’t command quite the same attention that it used to. It isn’t mathematically special. And in today’s society, it isn’t even unusually large. We now live in a world where the population is measured in billions, economies are scaled in trillions and computer calculations are counted by the quadrillion.

But it takes on a very special significance when you’re talking about looking after the well-being of your community in the middle of a globally devastating pandemic.

In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers analyzed chikungunya and dengue outbreak data from 76 countries over a period of 50 years, focusing on regions across the Indian Ocean that are hard hit by these and other mosquito-borne infectious diseases.

The analysis of 1959-2009 data revealed that population density and proximity to a country already experiencing an outbreak were the factors most closely associated with a country’s own likelihood of experiencing an outbreak.