Trump health officials to recommend against retesting COVID-19 patients

[demmiblue]

Source: The Hill

Top Trump administration officials are preparing guidance that will recommend people who test positive for COVID-19 do not need to get retested to prove they no longer have the disease.

The move, previewed in a call with reporters by the administration's testing coordinator Brett Giroir, comes as the U.S. testing system faces severe strains and a national backlog of results.

The guidance will represent a major change in ensuring people with COVID-19 don't spread the disease.

Giroir said the change is meant to reduce unnecessary testing.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/507742-trump-health-officials-to-recommend-against-retesting-covid-patients

[Iliyah]

1. This is nuts . .

Also, I'll bet staff in the WH or whomever will be in contact with shithole will be re-testing forever.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Soon no testing for anything, no health care, just give all your money to Trump and live your life

working to pay taxes so he can grab it.

Tell me my thoughts are unfounded.

[soothsayer]

3. Is it true you don't spread it after 9 days?

Maybe that’s what they’re banking on.

[LisaL]

24. I don't think anybody knows for sure.

[uponit7771]

4. InOtherWords: "we're running out of test again" Giroir ass should be in jail for fuckin test up this

... bad, again.

This is beyond stupid

[Champp]

5. He's following the Republican plan

[ashredux]

6. Hmmm.. let me think....why not focus on INCREASING And IMPROVING TESTING!!

[SergeStorms]

21. Because that would take effort.

Donald Trump doesn't do "effort".

[Freethinker65]

7. Unfortunately because of Trumps complete mismanagement, rationing is now necessary

Current testing labs are overwhelmed with tests to be analyzed and already running at capacity. They are already prioritizing analyses. My cousins symptomatic wife got her results (+) within two days and self quarantined while results for the asymptomatic family members she lived with results took one week (-) but honestly a week out, who knows if they contracted it within that time? They are also self quarantining, but to lower level of house.

I assume other non-COVID tests run through these same mega labs (Quest diagnostics, etc.) are also getting delayed as backlogged COVID tests have been prioritized. Anecdotally, I waited a week for a protein marker test result that before would come back in 24 to 48 hours.

If you think you have it, try for a test, but just assume you have it and self quarantine.

[Lonestarblue]

8. How is it that most other countries in the world have access to all the tests they need?

And now that EU nations and many others have the virus under control, why can’t we obtain testing supplies from them? I suspect they’re better anyway. And what about rapid testing. We don’t seem to have enough of that either. It takes at least 7 days to get test results here, allowing people with the virus to just keep spreading it.

[Freethinker65]

9. I think we actually have the tests now? Finally have enough swabs and reagents?

What we do not have is the testing capacity to analyze all of the tests. The same same person taking multiple tests slows our system down even more.

[LiberalArkie]

12. Quest really doesn't have that many labs, they do have a large air force

It's pretty quiet out there these days, particularly after you've gone to bed. But somewhere above, a pilot bathed in the glow of avionics is looking up from his instrument panel into the night. Behind him are 76 soft-sided coolers holding the physical data on which modern medicine depends—samples of blood, urine, and tissue from individuals around the country.

They're aboard a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop business aircraft, collected from airports where they've been delivered from laboratories, doctors' offices, and hospitals. The airplane is part of the 25-strong specimen-transport fleet of Quest Diagnostics, one of the two leading companies in the medical lab services market.

Quest pilots' mission to collect and transport this valuable cargo has the same goal every night: to gather the material and get it safely back to one of Quest's labs by 2am. That way, the lab results for the person from whom the specimen comes are available by 8am a day or two later.

There are remarkably few aircraft in the air over America at night in this time of COVID-19. Take a look at FlightRadar24.com or FlightAware.com at 10 or 11pm in the evening and you'll see.

Snip

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/04/a-look-at-the-airline-that-flies-covid-19-samples-around-the-country/

[AllyCat]

19. My hospital tells us they will not test employees because they don't have enough reagents

to run the tests. They need to save what they have for patients. Unless we are really sick, they won't test the staff.

Sounds safe, right?

[soothsayer]

10. It's probably this WHO guidance

Updated recommendation

New recommendation (published on 27 May 2020 as part of more comprehensive clinical care guidance1)

Within the Clinical Management of COVID-19 interim guidance published on 27 May 2020,1 WHO updated the criteria for discharge from isolation as part of the clinical care pathway of a COVID-19 patient. These criteria apply to all COVID-19 cases regardless of isolation location or disease severity.

Criteria for discharging patients from isolation (i.e., discontinuing transmission-based precautions) without requiring retesting[1]:

For symptomatic patients: 10 days after symptom onset, plus at least 3 additional days without symptoms (including without fever [2] and without respiratory symptoms)[3]
For asymptomatic cases[4]: 10 days after positive test for SARS-CoV-2
For example, if a patient had symptoms for two days, then the patient could be released from isolation after 10 days + 3 = 13 days from date of symptom onset; for a patient with symptoms for 14 days, the patient can be discharged (14 days + 3 days =) 17 days after date of symptom onset; for a patient with symptoms for 30 days, the patient can be discharged (30+3=) 33 days after symptom onset).

[Botany]

11. IOW

Trump wants to kill you.

https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/a-bridge-a-500-metre-dinner-table-prague-citizens-had-a-unique-way-of-seeing-out-coronavirus/614682

Meanwhile in Prague they had a 1/4 mile long picnic table because they stomped on C-19 in part by testing.

[lark]

13. Is there any fucking thing they won't do to kill us?

Why is killing Americans his top priority?

[Botany]

14. Why is killing Americans his top priority?

Putin wants him to do that.

[lark]

15. That was my thought as well.

He's being well bribed to kill us and it doesn't take that much because he hates everyone not currently fluffing his tininess.

[uponit7771]

23. +1

[chriscan64]

16. Another self-inflicted wound.

Sure you could save testing supplies in this way, but the larger point they miss is that it didn't have to come to this. More simply, if there weren't so many positive tests, retesting would not be such a drain on supplies.

[elias7]

17. THIS IS FUCKING CRIMINAL!! One for the history books...

[AllyCat]

18. These people cannot seem to get what we need for tests for SIX MONTHS

and now to manage their inept response, they are just not going to let people get tested to show they have cleared the infection!! All this with no masks. God, I hate these people.

[iluvtennis]

20. Another idiotic policy from trump administration. trump has FAILED with national plan on how to

combat this virus. Just in March was it that he and pence said anyone who wants a test can get one.

Work with China/et al to get the chemical reagents needed for testing for CV-19. Allow the equipped hospital labs across the nation to do their own testing versus sending the swabs to a few central processing facilities.

I so DESPISE this administration.

[SunSeeker]

22. Can't let science stand in the way!