CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday reversed its guidance after calls from public health officials, which said asymptomatic people who have come in contact with COVID-19 should be tested. The updated guidance moves back to earlier spring-time recommendations.
"If you have been in close contact, such as within six-feet of a person with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection for at least 15 minutes and do not have symptoms, you need a test," the CDC posted on its website Friday.
Testing for COVID-19 | CDC: "Find out who should get tested. Protect yourself and others. Wear a mask, wash hands often, stay 6 ft from others. Two kinds of tests are available for COVID-19: viral tests and antibody tests. Not everyone needs to be tested. If you do get tested, you should self-quarantine/isolate at home pending"
In an interview with WCNC Charlotte, conducted in the early days of the pandemic, the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stated the importance of testing for all who want a test.
"When you get someone infected you need to identify them with a test. Isolate them so they do not infect others. For a community, a city, a state to get back to normal you have to have the ability to immediately contain that."
The CDC also recommends people self-quarantine at home and stay apart from others in the household while waiting for test results. "A single negative test does not mean you will remain negative at any time point after that test. Even if you have a negative test, you should still self-isolate for 14 days," according to CDC.gov.
White House Deputy Press Secretary, Brian Morganstern told WCNC Charlotte in an interview Friday that the President supports mask-wearing as well as an effective action all Americans can take to slow the spread.
"It's a good thing and you should wear a mask when you cannot socially distance and he has said as much. We should socially distance, we should wear a mask, wash our hands, and let's make sure we limit the spread of the virus as much as possible." Said Morganstern. It's important that we reopen in a safe way using common-sense mitigation techniques and we are in a much different place today than we were a few months ago with our ability to treat the virus. That's in thanks to the President's efforts, the President's Operation Warp Speed initiative where we have brought treatments to market faster than ever before, reduce hospitalization rates, reduce mortality rates, reduce the risks associated with this disease."
The updated stance on mask-wearing comes on the heels of an NBC News Report that shows an effort to send every U.S. household in April cloth masks was changed-- choosing instead to distribute the masks to nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies, according to an internal email from a senior Trump administration official obtained by NBC News.
Public health experts said sending masks directly to Americans' homes in the early days of the global pandemic would have sent a stronger message encouraging Americans to wear masks.
NCDHHS reported today that 904 people are in the hospital tonight fighting COVID. 191,019 Lab-Confirmed Cases have been reported with over 2 and a half million tests completed.
