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White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was undergoing surgery and not in the August 20 task force meeting for the discussion on updated US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that suggest asymptomatic people may not need to be tested for Covid-19, even if they've been in close contact with an infected person. "I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations" at that meeting, Fauci told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. (Diamond, Holmes and Gupta, 8/27)

Other health experts react —

Across the country, public health experts called the change bizarre. They noted that testing contacts of infected people is a core element of public health efforts to keep outbreaks in check, and that a large percentage of infected people — the CDC has said as many as 40% — exhibit no symptoms. “The recommendation not to test asymptomatic people who likely have been exposed is not in accord with the science,” said John Auerbach, president of Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit that works to improve U.S. preparedness against disease. (Stobbe, 8/26)

The Trump administration has stirred confusion and concern by rewriting its guidelines for coronavirus testing. Public health experts fear the revised guidelines will lead to less testing – something the president has repeatedly asked for — but the administration denies that. Part of the concern stems from the way the new guidelines were unveiled. There was no press release or announcement in advance, but instead on Monday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly updated the website that provides guidance for coronavirus testing. Journalists discovered the change. (Harris, 8/26)

Public health experts reacted with alarm Wednesday to new Covid-19 testing guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guidance that they said will make it harder to find and isolate people spreading the SARS-2 virus early and will undermine efforts to control transmission. The guidance recommends against testing people who have been in contact with confirmed Covid-19 cases but who don’t yet have symptoms — even though such people can be infectious. It was crafted not by the CDC but by the White House coronavirus task force, and the nation’s best-known infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, didn’t sign off on it. (Branswell and Sheridan, 8/26)

Infectious disease experts are not only confused but also troubled by a change in testing guidelines made by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said people without symptoms may not need a test – even if they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus. “Our work on the ‘silent’ spread underscored the importance of testing people who have been exposed to COVID-19 regardless of symptoms,” tweeted Alison Galvani, director for the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at Yale School of Medicine. “This change in policy will kill.” (Rodriguez, 8/26)

The change, made without any rationale or explanation, further erodes the scientific community's confidence in the CDC. For months, the story has been more—not less—testing could only help control the world's worst outbreak of the virus. "If this is coming from HHS, it really undermines the CDC," said Amesh Adalja, MD, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. (Soucheray, 8/26)

Some lawmakers push back —

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) said Wednesday that asymptomatic testing for COVID-19 would be “paramount” to addressing the pandemic in the coming months. The remarks by Burgess, the top Republican and the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, contrast with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which said asymptomatic people do not need to be tested for COVID-19, even if they have been in close contact with an infected person. (Bikales, 8/26)

New York’s governor said the state would not follow national coronavirus testing guidelines, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed them to recommend that people who have been in close contact with an infected person but do not exhibit symptoms should not get a test. (Stacey, 8/26)

New guidance on coronavirus testing and travel issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew strong pushback from California officials Wednesday. The CDC is no longer recommending a 14-day quarantine for travelers. After the government issued a mandatory quarantine for travelers arriving in the U.S. from Wuhan, China, in February, the guidance that travelers isolate for two weeks was adopted by several states and encouraged by local officials as a key tool in mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus — especially among people who may be asymptomatic. (Shalby and Willion, 8/26)