NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials on Friday dropped a controversial piece of coronavirus guidance and said anyone who has been in close contact with an infected person should get tested.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention essentially returned to its previous testing guidance, getting rid of language posted last month that said people didn’t need to get tested if they didn’t feel sick. That change had set off a rash of criticism from health experts who couldn’t fathom why the nation’s top public health agency would say such a thing amid the pandemic.
It was “not consistent with the basic principles of controlling an epidemic,”said Dr. Silvia Chiang, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Brown University who applauded the change announced Friday.
The CDC now says anyone who has been within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes should get a test. In a statement, the agency called the changes a “clarification” that was needed “due to the significance of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission.”
Agency officials declined additional comment.