Well but exposed folks now need a test
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday reversed a recommendation suggesting that people who have had close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus do not need to get tested if they have no symptoms.
The change comes after widespread criticism of the earlier guideline as well as reporting from the New York Times that the recommendation came from political appointees in the Trump administration and skipped the agency’s usual rigorous scientific review.
The previous phrasing, which suggested that asymptomatic people who have had close contact with an infected individual “do not necessarily need a test,” now instructs them: “You need a test.”
The original guidance, posted Aug. 24, drew criticism even from the CDC’s partners.
Several studies have shown that people can efficiently spread the virus even if they don’t have symptoms.
“We know that asymptomatic transmission is what’s driving this pandemic, and we know that we cannot rein in COVID-19 unless we have widespread accessible testing,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a former assistant health commissioner for Baltimore.
After the initial pushback from the scientific community, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield sought last month to clarify the agency’s position, saying testing “may be considered” for people without symptoms.
The new recommendation was a “detailed follow-up to Dr. Redfield’s testing guidance clarification statement on Aug. 27,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “Current science shows that testing people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19 is an important part of preventing disease transmission.”
In the case of the guidance in August, the agency’s scientists saw early versions and made their disagreements known but said their concerns went unheeded.
Adm. Brett Giroir, the administration’s testing coordinator and an assistant secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, the CDC’s parent organization, said the document had come from the CDC but that he had edited and revised it, with input from scientific and medical members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and Dr. Scott Atlas, the president’s scientific adviser.
Giroir did not respond to a request for comment on the new guidance.
Previous directors of the agency said it was normal for important documents to be cleared by administration officials at the White House and the Health and Human Services Department but that the degree of interference in the CDC’s scientific work during the pandemic was unprecedented.
The agency’s scientific recommendations and reports are normally vetted by dozens of scientists, but the drafting and revising of these testing guidelines largely have been controlled by the Health and Human Services Department and the White House task force on the coronavirus.