Yet again, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has updated the guidelines on its website for testing people who have no symptoms.
Due to the asymptomatic and disproportional transmission of the coronavirus in the United States, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has once again stressed on the need to test asymptomatic persons including those in close contact with a COVID positive person.
Here’s what the CDC has newly updated:
- The contacts of individuals in closer vicinity to the COVID-19 positive person must be immediately traced and tested.
- Viral tests are recommended to diagnose the acute infection for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.
- Quick contract tracing is required for better isolation and immediate treatment.
- People who are in close contact even by following 6-feet distance must be tested though he/she does not report any symptoms.
- Any person who feels that he or she is in contact with a COVID positive person for even 15 minutes must get tested immediately if he or she belongs to the vulnerable group or have any underlying ailments.
- In areas where there are a small number of cases and limited spread, the public health department has to test at least a smaller number of asymptomatic people.
- If there is a significant spread in an area, the public health department will test almost everyone in the area to curb the spread.
- The guidelines are coordinated in conjunction with the White House’s coronavirus task force after appropriate consultation from the task force experts.
- The move was criticized by certain doctors saying that the testing process includes fact-checking, cross-checking, and several other checks for the scientific review which can take several days before the actual testing process starts.
- However, there was immediate praise from the public health experts who expect these measures to curb the spread of the virus to a large extent.
- In a few days, people are hopeful that CDC will work quickly to update any other documents to ensure the new guidelines are understood better.
By Gayatri Yellayi
