US: Fauci says CDC mulling COVID-19 test requirement for asymptomatic as Omicron spreads

As COVID-19 omicron variant surges across United States, top federal health officials are looking to d a negative test along with its five-day isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch coronavirus, White House's top medical viser said Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now considering including negative test as part of its guidance after getting significant “pushback” on its updated recommendations last week.

Under that Dec. 27 guidance, isolation restrictions for people infected with COVID-19 were shortened from 10 days to five days if y are no longer feeling symptoms or running a fever. After that period, y are asked to spend following five days wearing a mask when around ors.

guidelines have since received criticism from many health professionals for not specifying a negative antigen test as a requirement for leaving isolation.

“re has been some concern about why we don't ask people at that five-day period to get tested,” Fauci said. “Looking at it again, re 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 next day or so from CDC.” Fauci, nation's top infectious diseases expert, said U.S. has been seeing almost a “vertical increase” of new cases, now averaging 400,000 cases a day, with hospitalizations also up.

“We are definitely in middle of a very severe surge and uptick in cases,” he said. “ acceleration of cases that we've seen is unprecedented, gone well beyond anything we've seen before.” Fauci said he's concerned that omicron variant is overwhelming health care system and causing a “major disruption” on or essential services.

“When I say major disruption, you're certainly going to see stresses on system and system being people with any kind of jobs ... particularly with critical jobs to keep society functioning normally,” Fauci said. “We alrey know that re are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities that 10, 20, 25 and sometimes 30% of people are ill. And 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 re really is a disruption. I hope that doesn't happen.” While re is “accumulating evidence” that omicron might le to less severe disease, he cautioned that data remains early. Fauci said he worries in particular about tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans because “a fair number of m will get severe disease." He urged Americans who have not yet gotten vaccinated and boosted to do so and to mask up indoors to protect mselves and blunt current surge of U.S. cases.

Food and Drug ministration last week said preliminary research indicates at-home rapid tests detect omicron, but may have reduced sensitivity. agency noted it's still studying how tests perform with variant, which was first detected in late November.

Fauci said Americans “should not get impression that those tests are not valuable.” “I think confusion is that rapid antigen tests have never been as sensitive as PCR test,” Fauci said. “y're very good when y are given sequentially. So if you do m like maybe two or three times over a few day period, at end of day, y are as good as PCR, but as a single test, y are not as sensitive.” A PCR test usually need to be processed in a laboratory. test looks for virus's genetic material and n reproduces it millions of times until it's detectable with a computer.

Fauci said if Americans take necessary precautions, U.S. might see some semblance of more normal life returning soon.

“One of se things that we hope for is that this thing will peak after a period of a few weeks and turn around," Fauci said. He expressed hope that by February and March, omicron could fall to a low enough level “that it doesn't disrupt our society, our economy, our way of life.” Fauci spoke on ABC's “This Week” and CNN's “State of Union.”