The Trump administration is considering the use of a new strategy that will allow states to dramatically expand their testing capabilities as various areas seek to control coronavirus outbreaks.
Public health officials have discussed the benefits of group testing in recent days, an approach that allows multiple samples to be analyzed at once to reduce the time and resources required to analyze large groups. Such a strategy could prove useful in allowing schools to reopen, experts said, and could preserve supplies as states like Texas, Florida and Arizona try to curb case numbers.
Administration officials have been circling the use of group tests, also known as batch tests, for some time. But they started discussing it more publicly over the past week.
Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, discussed the strategy during a conference call with the governors on Monday, according to two sources in the call. Birx did not explicitly encourage states to adopt group testing, but informed them of its merits and value.
Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciTrump’s focus dispersed amid multiple crises. SC Beach was linked to hundreds of cases of coronavirus as it prepares for tourists on July 4. Fauci says the United States “is going in the wrong direction” in the fight against the virus MORE, the government’s leading infectious disease expert, has given multiple interviews over the past week stating that the administration is trying to formulate a clustering-based test approach, while Admiral Brett Giroir, the administration-appointed test czar , it promoted this week that pooling samples could help enable the country to run up to 60 million tests per month in September.
If health officials try to test the coronavirus in 10 asymptomatic people, they can use group tests to collect samples from each one and then test all the samples at once. If that test is negative, the whole group can be considered negative without performing individual tests.
If the test is positive, each individual can be evaluated separately to determine the source of the positive result.
“This is being done now at many universities and many commercial labs, and we are absolutely working with everyone in the community to do this,” Grioir told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s not okay all the time, but it’s okay most of the time.”
Group tests have been used in the past to carry out widespread tests for other viral outbreaks, including HIV. Experts cautioned that pooling too many samples can dilute a positive test and lead to false negatives, so periodic testing is important.
Senator Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio RubioJennifer Aniston urges fans to ‘wear a damn mask’: ‘It really shouldn’t be a debate’ NIGHT POWER: House passes green .5T infrastructure plan | Rubio seeks a defense bill to block offshore drilling, but some fear it will create a loophole | DC area lawmakers are pushing for them to be analyzed before federal agencies can be relocated. Fauci says the United States “is going in the wrong direction” in the fight against the virus MORE (R), whose Florida home state has reported a record number of coronavirus cases in recent days, wrote to Vice President Pence and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar on Thursday urging the administration to develop a “country-wide group testing strategy in the immediate future”.
The senator called for the national strategy to include cost estimates that allow Congress to allocate funds to ensure group testing can continue throughout the pandemic.
“I believe that group testing can be used effectively in schools so that students can safely return to the classroom this fall, where they can take advantage of the well-documented benefits of learning and socializing in person,” Rubio wrote.
The Trump administration has yet to outline a national testing plan, rather than letting states determine their own course of action. HHS will describe the situations in which it is most helpful for states to conduct group testing and offer technical assistance on the approach as needed, HHS spokeswoman Mia Heck said.
The United States has made significant progress in its testing capabilities since the first weeks of the pandemic, when the federal government struggled to implement an effective test and obtain the necessary resources to process samples.
But the country now faces a new set of challenges, as more than half of states are seeing an increase in the number of cases or an increase in the rate of tests that test positive. Florida, Texas, Arizona and California have accounted for only about half of the new positive tests in the past few days.
Some government officials, including President Trump
Donald John Trump House panel approves defense policy bill 0.5B House of Representatives panel votes against curtailment of Insurrection Law powers after heated debate Panel votes House of Representatives to restrict Afghan withdrawal, request evaluation on ‘incentives’ to attack US troops, they have attributed the increasing numbers to the increasing evidence, but Pence, Giroir and others have recognized that it is not the only factor. More Americans have contracted the virus as states loosen restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the disease, and people under the age of 35 account for part of the spike.
Experts say that pooled evidence alone will not be enough to control these new outbreaks.
Anand Parekh, who served as deputy assistant secretary at HHS from 2008 to 2015, called using group testing a “promising strategy,” but said at least some other protocols should be in place to control the increase in the cases.
Local leaders must be willing to pause reopens or re-establish restrictions meant to slow the spread, people must wear masks and social distance, and health officials must establish tests for asymptomatic individuals and contact tracing, he said.
Leana Wen, a physician and former Baltimore City health commissioner, said the group tests would help address this last point.
“At this point, however, we cannot have unsystematic approaches,” he said. “We long ago had a national testing strategy, which is essential to contain COVID-19 and allow for a safer reopening.”
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