The Covid-19 testing

On August 20, the Trump regime prohibited the FDA from regulating Covid-19 tests. This could cause bad tests and false results, as was possibly the purpose of the order. What better way to undermine faith in tests or to disappear Covid than to have everyone test negative for it? If this sounds too conspiratorial to you, remember we have a president who says if we don’t test for this plague, then the numbers of cases will decline.

In another surprising move, six days later, the CDC revised its testing guidelines. Huffington Post reported that the new regs would “say that people without symptoms do not need to be tested even if they have been in close contact with someone who tested positive.” While this will reduce the reported infection rate, pleasing Trump, it could actually increase the spread of the disease, because asymptomatic people won’t know they have it and therefore won’t take precautions to avoid infecting others. Experts estimate that 40 percent of transmission is caused by asymptomatic infected people. Though the CDC later walked back these new guidelines due to a public uproar, it did not change them on its website.

“The agency’s revised guidelines go against public health experts’ consensus…” wrote Huffington Post. “That is why experts have recommended widespread testing as a crucial element in containing the disease.” Indeed, the governors of California, Washington and New York said they will not follow the new CDC guidelines. Washington governor Jay Inslee said it would lead to missing “thousands of new cases and allow the virus to spread in our communities.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said: “We’re not going to follow the CDC guidance. I consider it political propaganda.”

So this is yet another of several very odd official moves regarding Covid testing. Odd in the sense of anti-public health and unscientific. Odd in the sense that these changes will increase the contagion’s spread, at a time when the US is the world’s epicenter of the pandemic, because it has dealt with Covid more incompetently than any other government on the globe. But, as the Washington Post reported August 30, these moves are of a piece with the “herd immunity” approach of one of Trump’s top medical advisers, Scott Atlas. Unfortunately, herd immunity -- when enough people have had the disease and become immune to stop viral spread -- means lots of Covid deaths. In the U.S, that would be millions. Sweden tried it and has one of the highest death rates in the world. And it still didn’t save their economy, because people took matters into their own hands and stayed home to avoid infection.

Excerpted from: ‘The Latest Covid Testing Sabotage’

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