What do the new CDC coronavirus testing guidelines mean? Yahoo News Explains
On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control released an unexpected update to their guidelines for coronavirus testing. The changes, which have already come under fire by many in the medical community, state that people without symptoms — even those who have had direct exposure to a COVID-postive patient — should not be tested unless recommended to by a doctor. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains the implications of these new guidelines — and why she thinks it won't be long before they are changed again.
Video Transcript
KAVITA PATEL: The CDC recently changed their guidance for patients with no symptoms. And essentially, the guidance states that you should not get tested if you have no symptoms for COVID-19. There is more recommendations that if you have known contact with COVID-19 but no symptoms, you still don't need to get tested.
- That's a bit of a jarring shift, as a number of schools and universities report big new outbreaks.
KAVITA PATEL: Those two changes to any kind of normal, thinking individual might not make sense, and that's very reasonable because literally, as I'm talking and sitting in the clinic with dozens of other doctors, none of us can make sense out of why someone who is in known contact with a positive case should not be tested.
So it's not clear why they changed this. In part, we think that it might be due to, you know, nationwide testing shortages or at least delays in getting test results. In the region I practice, we're on a two to three day turnaround, and some have argued that that's too slow. Honestly, about a month ago, it was five days, seven days. So I'm very happy about that turnaround.
But I think what they're trying to do is state that if you are not symptomatic, you do not need to get tested. And therefore, you're not using doctor's appointments or resources. That's one hypothesis, or that's one guess.
It's hard to know because the agency which put out this recommendation just two months ago stated that the majority of individuals with coronavirus had no symptoms. So we're all scratching our heads. And we're trying to understand if there's been some new data or new developments, and we can't find any. And I've even spoken to friends who used to work at the CDC for decades. They don't really understand this either.
I personally expect that this could change, that there's going to be incredible pressure. And it reminds me a little bit of that press conference from the World Health Organization where one of the senior scientists said--
MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward.
KAVITA PATEL: And then there was a global fury around that comment. So that reminds me of this. So we'll see.
