With almost 200,000 fatal cases of the COVID-19 in the United States alone, the CDC seems to be giving up on the fight up against the worst pandemic.
The reason for this is based on the CDC recommending that only a fewer number of people get tested for the COVID-19 after the agency had previously recommended that “all close contacts” of infected people be tested while also stressing the importance of contacts being “quickly identified and tested” all in the sake of not spreading the disease even further.
The CDC’ new position is that those who have no symptoms “do not necessarily need a test,” even if they were directly exposed or have attended large gathering in a viral hotspot.
It makes exceptions for “vulnerable individuals” and adds a vague instruction to follow local health officials — who, under normal circumstances, would look to the CDC for guidance.
The point for the new stance seems really confusing to the American people at large and why this changes was made but the point is that this could even lead to the loss of much more lives if adequate care isn’t taken.
The sudden rise in the cases of the COVID-19 being spread throughout the entire country in a just a matter of short period has caused a serious socio-economic problem in the country. Meanwhile the CDC had earlier advised people of a self isolation within 5 to 14 days to develop symptoms and then estimates suggests that about 30% to 40% of people never even developed any symptoms at all.
Meanwhile the dangerous part is the fact that these asymptomatic people can still transmit the disease which was why the testing of close contacts to those earlier tested to being positive was recommended.
But in order for the fight to be much more successful after the lockdown, there is the need for cutting off the chain of infection which involves searching cases and then figuring out if the patient have been exposed to others which then requires quarantining all their contacts for two weeks or at least running tests and isolating only those who are sick.
The promise for a better treatment and vaccines as a solution to the pandemic had been the promise of the US government under Donald Trump‘s administration meanwhile we’re almost in September and there seems to be nothing in close sights right now.
Even the completion of necessary vaccine trials will reportedly take months and the final administration of the vaccine will apparently take even much longer.
There have however been countries which had gotten their cases under control via the testing and tracing methods which also involves a two-weeks quarantine for those who traveled which had been discontinued by the CDC as well.
According to the agency leader Admiral Brett Giroir, he made it known that the agency is applying guidance for doctors and frontline health workers to everyone in the country.
“A negative test on Day 2 doesn’t mean you’re negative. So what is the value of that?” Giroir also said. “It doesn’t mean on Day 4 you can go out and visit Grandma or on Day 6 go out without a mask on in school.”
The fact remains that the reduction in the number of tests being carried out is even much more deadlier than the anything. This can be confirmed by the fact that the Federal government at the beginning of the pandemic had ordered the testing of only those who had traveled and deemed to have been exposed to the disease which was deemed an imported disease as at the time.
Meanwhile the disease had spread through to different people within the New York city for example and with this, thousands of lives was lost in just a matter of few weeks.
This has caused the increase in the number of testing being conducted since the month of March but the disease had continued to spread around like a serious wildfire claiming the lives of tens of thousands of people.
The US President has had some points mentioned that the finding of new cases which ultimately makes the numbers of the US increases makes the country look bad a statement which doesn’t really sound funny as politicizing the pandemic is a really horrible thing to do.
With the testing being slowed down, this will in fact put the healthcare frontliners at a much more riskier situation which can lead to their lives being put into jeopardy as well as the disease getting spread across he country even much more.
While the federal government might be exercising its own federal authorities, the states too have their own power which states like California isn’t following according to the state’s governor Gavin Newsom disregarding the new guidance. Other hard-hit states such as Texas, Florida, New York and others have followed suit.
In fact local health experts have urged the CDC to revise their guidance and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Dauci also expressed his concerns that they’ll discourage tests.
The fact that the federal government is working against the health benefits of the entire general public is a serious thing and should concern everybody. The death toll doesn’t even seems to be of much concern to the White House with the US President stating that it “is what it is.”
But testing is also core to any kind of economic recovery, something Trump has heavily emphasized. Even if you somehow forget that COVID-19 is killing people, making workers stay home for weeks or risk debilitating their fellow employees with illness is, in fact, very bad for business.
Politicizing the virus is going to be a really dangerous practice and that is why the CDC needs to offer it’s service to helping the country get back on to it’s feet by encouraging much more better testing and even creating a much better ways of conducting more tests and quick results.
