Officials change CDC virus-testing advice
Guidelines saying that asymptomatic contacts of infected people don’t need tests bewilder experts
NEW YORK >> U.S. health officials sparked criticism and confusion after posting guidelines on coronavirus testing from the White House task force that run counter to what scientists say is necessary to control the pandemic.
The new guidance says it’s not necessary for people who have been in close contact with infected people, but don’t feel sick, to get tested.
It was posted this week on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC previously advised local health departments to test people who have been within 6 feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes.
According to a report in The New York Times, the CDC
was instructed by higherups in the Trump administration to modify its coronavirus testing guidelines this week to exclude people who do not have symptoms of COVID-19 — even if they have been exposed to the virus, according to two federal health officials.
One official said the directive came from the top down. Another said the guidelines were not written by the CDC but were imposed, Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported for The Times.
Adm. Brett Giroir, the administration’s coronavirus testing czar, said the guidelines ultimately belong to the CDC, specifically its director, Dr. Robert Redfield. But he also said other members of President Trump’s virus
task force were involved.
“Let me tell you right up front that the new guidelines are a CDC action,” Giroir said. “As always, guidelines received appropriate attention, consultation and input from task force experts — and I mean the medical and scientific experts — including CDC director Redfield and myself.”
However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert and perhaps the best known task force member, said Wednesday that he wasn’t part of the discussion that green-lighted the change.
Fauci told CNN that he was undergoing surgery when the new guidance was discussed last week, adding he was “worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is.”
Across the country, public health experts called the change bizarre. They noted that testing contacts of infected people is a core element of public health efforts to keep outbreaks in check, and that a large percentage of infected people — the CDC has said as many as 40% — exhibit no symptoms.
“I actually didn’t believe it, for it seemed entirely bizarre,” said Santa Clara County public health director Dr. Sara Cody. “The truth is that if you’ve been in contact with someone who is infected with COVID, you absolutely need to get a test.”
John Auerbach, president of Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit that works to improve U.S. preparedness against disease, agreed. “The recommendation not to test asymptomatic people who likely have
been exposed is not in accord with the science,” he said.
Some officials, including some state governors, said it was another sign of a dysfunctional federal response to the pandemic.
“This is like a public health version of Vietnam,” said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which works to strengthen the public health system.
CDC officials referred all media questions to the agency’s parent organization, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington. That suggests that HHS ordered the change, not the CDC, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher.
After Twitter lit up with head-scratching and alarm about the change, HHS officials sent an email Wednesday
saying the guidance was revised “to reflect current evidence and the best public health interventions,” but they did not say what the new evidence was.
The decision came out of meetings of the White House coronavirus task force, HHS officials said.
Dr. Tom Frieden, who was head of the CDC during the Obama administration, said the move follows another recent change: to no longer recommend quarantine for travelers coming from areas where infections are more common.
“Both changes are highly problematic” and need to be better explained, said Frieden, who now is president of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit program that works to prevent epidemics.
Frieden said he, too, believes HHS forced the CDC to post the changes. He called it “a sad day” because
“CDC is being told what to write on their website.”
The governors of California, New York, Washington and Kentucky — all Democrats — criticized the new recommendations.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said their states will not follow the new guidance. “We will not be influenced by that change,” Newsom said. “We’re influenced by the folks that are experts in the field who feel very differently.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said on Twitter that the changes likely will cause thousands of infections in his state to go unrecognized and allow the virus to spread even more.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called the new guidance “reckless.”
Staff writer Daniel Wu contributed to this report.