7 Oct 2020
CDC Reverses Guidance on Covid-19 & LGBTQ Youth
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly tweaked its guidance on COVID-19 testing Monday, making a change that could result in fewer people being tested and hinder contact tracing efforts.
The guidance (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/testing-overview.html) now states that healthy people who have been exposed to COVID-19 "do not necessarily need a test," as long as they don't have symptoms. That's a reversal from previous advice that clearly recommended testing for all close contacts of infected individuals, regardless of whether they had symptoms.
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/coronavirus)
"It seems as though this new guidance is actively discouraging people from seeking testing, even if they have a known exposure," Angela Rasmussen, a research scientist at Columbia Public Health in New York City, said. "We need more testing, not less."
President Donald Trump has been outspoken about his belief (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/experts-reject-trump-comments-coronavirus-testing-n1234341)that the United States has the most COVID-19 cases in the world because of the number of tests it carries out.
But "testing, even for asymptomatic people, is critical to keeping community transmission low since we know that presymptomatic transmission drives much of the spread of SARS-CoV-2," Rasmussen said, referring to the virus that causes COVID-19.
An exposure is considered spending more than 15 minutes in close contact — meaning closer than 6 feet — with a person who has COVID-19. The new recommendation excludes vulnerable individuals, such as older adults and people with chronic medical conditions, who should still be tested after exposure. It also says that state and local health officials may still recommend a test.
"It's like they're saying we don't have enough tests," said Dr. Michael Saag, an infectious disease physician and associate dean for global health at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
"In my opinion," he said, "if a community or municipality has sufficient testing, they should continue to use the testing and ignore this recent update."
Not all experts saw the guidance in a negative light.
"I agree that reflex testing of anybody with a significant exposure is unnecessary and not the best policy. Those individuals with significant exposures should self-quarantine for 14 days," Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Two in 5 LGBTQ youth in the United States have "seriously considered" suicide in the past year, a sobering survey released Wednesday said, showing what one expert called the "devastating mental health consequences" of society's failure to create a safer and more affirming environment for America's queer youth.
The 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health (https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2020/?section=Introduction) by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization, paints a stark picture of pervasive mental distress among America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth, with a majority reporting symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.
