“A New Testing Debacle”: Do GOP Senators Support Trump Admin Reportedly Pressuring CDC to Change Testing Guidelines?

Public Health Experts Are Questioning the Scientific Basis for the Testing Change, Warning It Could Lead to “More Spikes in Coronavirus”

According to new reports, Trump administration officials “pressured” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue new guidance yesterday that no longer recommends most people without symptoms who have come into close contact with someone who is infected with coronavirus get tested. While public health experts are speaking out and questioning the scientific basis for this shift, Senate Republicans have been silent on the CDC changing its guidance under political pressure from the White House.

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, expressed concern that this “will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern.”
  
• The president of the American Medical Association predicted this “is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.”

• The Association of American Medical Colleges called the changes “irresponsible” and “a step backward.”

Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, America’s testing capacity has been marred by “disarray, shortages, backlogs” while Republican senators have refused to hold the Trump administration accountable. The Trump administration’s failure to develop adequate testing and contact tracing infrastructure has undermined the U.S. response to the pandemic and stymied the ability of states to safely restart the economy and reopen schools.

“President Trump called for slowing down coronavirus testing and now his administration is reportedly weakening testing standards with no pushback at all from Senate Republicans,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Do Republican senators support robust testing and listening to experts, or do they support the Trump administration pressuring experts to alter public health guidance?”

POLITICO: Trump officials pressured CDC to change virus testing guidelines

Public health experts have questioned the scientific basis for the testing change.

Key Points:

• Top Trump administration officials involved with the White House coronavirus task force ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Protection to stop promoting coronavirus testing for most people who have been exposed to the virus but aren’t showing symptoms, according to two people with knowledge of the process.

• Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said the change could send the wrong message. “I’m worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern,” Fauci said in a statement read by CNN’s Sanjay Gupta on-air Wednesday afternoon. “In fact, it is.”

• Other public health experts questioned the scientific basis for the testing changes, which they said could make it harder for the United States to contain its outbreak — especially with students heading back to schools and universities across the country in the coming weeks.

• Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean at the Emory School of Medicine, told POLITICO the CDC guidelines do not make sense because individuals who have been in close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19 for at least 15 minutes could potentially be infected and should be tested.

• “Asymptomatic people transmit, and if you don’t isolate them and you don’t identify them, transmission will continue,” del Rio said. “I’m worried we are not diagnosing the people that we need to diagnose.”

• American Medical Association President Susan Bailey urged CDC and HHS to provide the scientific justification behind making the change to the testing recommendations. “Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to COVID-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus,” Bailey said.

• The abrupt — and unannounced — changes have already intensified scrutiny of the CDC’s independence, and the administration’s broader coronavirus response ahead of the November election.

• Scientists, not just politicians, are also sounding the alarm about the potential motives behind the CDC’s latest action.

Axios: 1 big thing: A new testing debacle

Key Points:

• It’s a flashback to the spring, when the U.S. could only perform a tiny number of tests and reserved them for the sickest patients.

• It was true then, and remains true now, that an ideal testing strategy would not exclude asymptomatic people. Some 40% of all cases are asymptomatic, meaning a whole lot of people are likely spreading the virus without knowing it.

• The U.S. is now conducting some 690,000 tests per week, but it still hasn’t been enough to keep up with demand, causing delays of up to two weeks for test results — which renders them all but useless.

• Sources told multiple news outlets that the White House pressured the CDC to revise its guidelines.

• The response to the change has been overwhelmingly negative.

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