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Updated January 3rd, 2022 at 13:17 IST

US likely to mandate COVID-19 test requirement for asymptomatic patients

US: Amid the rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 across the United States, the CDCP is considering adding a negative test for asymptomatic people.

Reported by: Amrit Burman
US
Image: AP | Image:self
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Amid the rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) is considering adding a negative test for asymptomatic people who are infected with COVID-19, said a top medical adviser at the White House on Sunday. Dr Anthony Fauci said CDCP is considering amending its new five-day isolation rules after getting major "pushback" on its revised recommendations last week. As per the December 27 guidelines issued by CDCP, the isolation period was cut from 10 days to five days for those who no longer have COVID symptoms.

"There has been some concern about why we don’t ask people in that five-day period to get tested. Looking at it again, there may be an option in that, that testing could be a part of that, and I think we’re going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the CDC," said Fauci.

Fauci said the United States has been witnessing almost a "vertical increase" of fresh COVID cases, now averaging 4,00,000 cases a day along with the rise in hospitalisations. "We are definitely in the middle of a very severe surge and an uptick in cases. The acceleration of cases that we’ve seen is really unprecedented and has gone well beyond anything we’ve seen before. " He expressed his concern over rising cases of Omicron, which are slowly overwhelming hospitals and also causing disruption in other public sectors across the US.

"When I say major disruptions, you’re certainly going to see stresses on the system and the system being people with any kind of job... particularly with critical jobs to keep society functioning normally," Fauci said. We already know that there are reports from fire departments and from police departments in different cities that say 10, 20, 25, and sometimes 30% of the people are ill. That’s something that we need to be concerned about because we want to make sure that we don’t have such an impact on society that there really is a disruption. I hope that doesn’t happen," he added

Meanwhile, the cancellation of flights due to weather conditions and the COVID pandemic has also escalated concerns among the citizens. On Sunday, over 2500 US flights and more than 4100 worldwide flights were cancelled. On the other hand, many companies that were planning to call their employees back to the office in 2022 have further extended those plans. Meanwhile, the White House has also limited the number of journalists allowed in the briefing room from 49 to just 14. 

Image: AP

With Inputs from AP

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Published January 3rd, 2022 at 13:17 IST

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