New CDC Testing Guideline Is 'Recipe For Community Spread': AMA

ACROSS AMERICA — Newly updated testing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now say people who have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus do not necessarily need to seek a test if they are not showing symptoms.

The new change, which The Associated Press reports came via a consensus of the White House coronavirus task force, has been questioned by scientists.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told CNN he's “worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,” reporting from the AP states.

The American Medical Association, in a statement, called the change “a recipe for community spread.”

The virus has already spread on hundreds of college campuses, with more than 26,000 confirmed cases reported at colleges and universities in the United States, a new tracker by The New York Times shows. The Times survey looked at more than 1,5000 schools across the country, including all four-year institutions that compete in NCAA sports.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham, with 972 confirmed cases as of noon on Wednesday, has the most cases among colleges included in the survey. The University of North Carolina is next with 835.

But overall, the number of Americans newly diagnosed with the coronavirus is falling, a development experts say most likely reflects more mask-wearing but also insufficient testing.

About 43,000 new cases are being reported daily across the country, down 21 percent from early August, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. While the United States, India and Brazil still have the highest numbers of new cases in the world, the downward trend is encouraging, according to an AP report.

“It’s profoundly hopeful news,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told the AP.

Still, the disease continues to claim nearly 1,000 lives in the United States each day; and as the country braces for its next flu season, experts say the familiar virus will add yet another challenge to already-problematic coronavirus testing.

In a usual year, doctors tend to bypass testing for the flu, instead assuming patients with a cough or fever are carrying the virus. This year, with the coronavirus presenting similar symptoms, doctors will likely need to test for both viruses to correctly diagnose their patients.

This is likely to further exacerbate supply shortages and coronavirus testing delays, the New York Times reports.

“The flu season is a bit of a ticking time bomb,” Amanda Harrington, medical director of microbiology at Loyola University Medical Center, told the Times. “We are all waiting and trying to prepare as best we can.”

Meanwhile, a Florida judge this week struck down a state order requiring public schools to open classrooms amid the pandemic.

The order specifically called for school districts to give students the option to go back to school in person by Aug. 31 or risk losing crucial state funding, the New York Times reports. In a ruling Monday, the judge said the order violates the Florida Constitution because it “arbitrarily disregards safety” and denies local school boards the ability to decide when students can safely return.

The ruling is a huge win for the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, and the Florida Education Association. Last month, the unions sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran in the first lawsuit of its kind in the country.

At least 1,212 new coronavirus deaths and 38,761 new cases were reported in the United States on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. Over the past week, there have been an average of 42,078 cases per day, a decrease of 22 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

As of Wednesday, 30 states remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen, a three-state increase from Monday. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

More than 5.8 million people in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Wednesday evening, and more than 179,300 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay current on all the latest U.S. coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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