CoronavirusHealth Officials Call on U.S. Government to Reverse COVID-19 Test Guidelines

Published 28 August 2020

Public health departments throughout the United States are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse changes the federal agency recently made to its public coronavirus testing guidelines. Earlier in the CDC announced that it would recommend stopping testing people who have been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.

Public health departments throughout the United States are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse changes the federal agency recently made to its public coronavirus testing guidelines.

The Big Cities Health Coalition and the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represent thousands of local departments, sent a letter Friday to the heads of the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting that the agencies reverse a decision to stop testing people who have been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.

The CDC had previously recommended testing for all people who had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, regardless of symptoms. 

The organizations called on the government agencies to reinstate recommendations that people who have been exposed to the virus be tested even if they are asymptomatic.

In the letter, the groups say the CDC’s decision this week “costs lives and livelihoods” and that “the CDC’s own data suggest that perhaps as many as 40% of COVID-19 cases are attributable to asymptomatic transmission.”

CDC Director Robert Redfield responded to criticism over the revised guidelines by saying “testing may be considered for all close contacts of confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.”

At least 33 states are not following the new CDC guidelines and continue to recommend testing for all people who have been exposed to COVID-19 regardless of symptoms, according to an analysis by Reuters news agency.

COVID-19 Vaccine
Separately, President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. will have a vaccination for the coronavirus “before the end of the year or maybe even sooner.”

The announcement was part of Trump’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination, delivered from the South Lawn of the White House as part of the party’s national convention.

Experts say vaccines can sometimes take decades to develop, test, and be proved safe before they are administered to patients. However, hope has been high that a concerted international effort will produce an effective vaccine sometime next year.

“In recent months our nation and the entire planet has been struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy,” Trump told the South Lawn audience whose mostly maskless members were not sitting 2 meters apart, a measure generally practiced to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The president has rarely been seen in public wearing a mask, another practice to help stop the spread of the virus.

This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA).