The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has returned new test guidelines released by his bureau after the lightning struck among some of the nation’s top health experts.
Dr Robert Redfield issued a statement late Wednesday night stating that “tests can be considered for all close contacts of confirmed and probable Covid-19 patients,” adding that “anyone who needs a Covid-19 test can take a test. to get.”
Despite the statement, the new test CDC guidelines remained on the agency’s website Thursday morning and are unlikely to be repealed. An official told the New York Times that Dr. Redfield made the statement “to clarify the new policy.”
“Testing is intended to stimulate action and achieve specific goals for public health,” wrote Dr. Redfield. “Anyone who needs a Covid-19 test can get a test. Anyone who wants a test does not necessarily need a test; the key is to engage the necessary public health community in deciding on the appropriate follow-up action. . “
The statement came after the CDC revised its testing guidelines earlier this week, stating only those with coronavirus symptoms should be tested.
Dr Redfield said the new guidelines were made in collaboration with the White House Coronavirus task force, but reports indicated that the CDC felt potential pressure from the Trump administration to change testing recommendations.
“It’s coming from the top down,” a federal official told CNN about the new guideline.
Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said he was under anesthesia when the decision was made to change CDC guidelines on testing.
“I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or discussion about the new test recommendations,” Dr. Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN.
He added: “I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and fear that it will give people the wrong assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is.”
This care was not only verbalized by Dr. Facui, but also other top physicians and health experts across the US.
Chief Scientific Officer of the Association of American Medical College, Dr. Ross McKinney Jr., called the new guidelines “irresponsible” and “go against the best interests of the American people and are a step back in fighting the pandemic”, the New York Times report.
Dr Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist and associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, told CNN that “close to 40 percent of cases of infections are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people transmit the infection.”
In a statement released by the Harvard Global Health Institute, the organization said the guidelines depart from “evidence-based policies.”
The new guidance represents a major departure from the evidence-based policy for detecting and testing contacts of positive cases that has played a significant role in the success of states such as New York and Massachusetts and countries such as Germany and South Korea around the virus, “read the statement, adding the motion by the CDC was made” without explanation. “
Reasons behind the CDC updating its testing guidelines may be due to the number of false negatives that can occur when testing pre-symptomatic carriers.
Dr. William Morice, head of Mayo Clinic Laboratories, told The independent that there is less than a 50 percent chance of getting a positive copy from an individual within the first few days of their exposure to the virus.
“That’s simply because the virus replicates in the individual, so the chance of you getting a positive copy is actually less than 50 percent,” he said. “If you test too early, it’s a bit of a mystery that you have a high chance of a false negative result.”
Test capabilities have increased to where the United States tested nearly one million people in one day at its peak last month. This number has dropped since the last four days to less than 700,000 tests, according to data maintained by the COVID Tracking Project.
In times of severe cases, such as what was seen in Southern states in the last month, testing facilities experienced an increased demand, which meant that it took longer for people to get results.
“It took people several days to get their test results back, and in that setting, the tests are less useful for measuring the spread,” said Dr. Morice.
He added that the new CDC guidelines could be made in an attempt to test all individuals who could spread the virus while paying attention to testing capacity.
“I think it really is the government to balance the need to test as many people as possible by not doing as many tests where the system is overwhelmed … where so many tests are ordered that people do not get results get back soon, “he said. “It really does not help anyone. That it continues to reach the right balance.”
Donald Trump has previously said that the reason why cases of the American coronavirus are so high – the country has more than 5.8 million reported cases – was because of how many people were tested. That the amended test guidelines ensured that they were made in an attempt to reduce the number of recorded cases.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accused the president of playing politics for the updated guidelines.
“The only plausible reason is that they want fewer people to take tests, because, as the President has said, if we do not take tests, you will not know that people are Covid-positive and the number of Covid-positive people will go down. , “Mr. Cuomo told reporters Wednesday.
