Several large US states are not heeding federal health officials' calls to reduce Covid-19 testing of some people exposed to the virus, joining a broad rebuke of the Trump administration by public health leaders.
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey and New York all plan to continue to test asymptomatic people who have been exposed to Covid-19, despite new guidance from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting that such tests may not be needed.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said: "The current Texas guidance recommends testing for all close contacts of a confirmed case because it allows for early case identification among people who are at a higher risk of infection. There's not a planned change at this point."
California and New York made similar statements. The Florida Department of Health said asymptomatic testing was continuing while the new CDC recommendations were evaluated, and Texas also said it would evaluate.
The CDC said this week that people exposed to Covid-19 but not symptomatic may not need to be tested, shocking doctors and politicians and prompting accusations the guidance was politically motivated.
Even before the CDC guidance, testing in the United States had dropped. The country tested on average 675,000 people a day the previous week, down from a peak the previous month of more than 800,000 people a day.
Nationally, cases have fallen for five weeks in a row, but infections are surging again in the US Midwest, with four states reporting record one-day spikes in cases on Thursday as the US death toll climbed above 180,000.
The CDC had previously recommended testing of all people who had close contact with somebody who was diagnosed with Covid-19.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state of New York would not be abiding by the new guidance and challenged the assertion that politics played no role in the change.
Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, said there was no political pressure from the administration. He said testing asymptomatic patients too early could produce false negatives and contribute to the virus' spread.
CNN and The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US public health officials were ordered by high-level members of the Trump administration to push forward with the changes.
Globally, several nations advocate early testing. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said that resources permitting, people exposed to the coronavirus should be tested even if they do not show immediate symptoms of infection.
Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said there was a rationale for testing asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people, in particular where clusters of infections were emerging, but that broad population testing was costly and unrealistic.
European governments have used broad testing and isolation to control the virus. France, for instance, recommends that anyone who thinks he or she needs a test should get one, and in Germany, people with close contact of 15 minutes or more with a person with Covid-19 are advised to have a test.
Meanwhile, WHO directorgeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an international mission the agency is organising to travel to China to investigate the virus' origin would go to Wuhan, where the first infections were detected late the previous year.
REUTERS