Nursing home says testing no longer necessary because coronavirus has gone “endemic” in US population The Evergreen Health elderly care facility in Kirkland, Washington, where multiple patients with the Wuhan coronavirus (CoVid-19) were transported for treatment a few days back has announced that it will no longer test for the novel disease because the government says it has already gone “endemic.”
In a “Community Message” to its staff, the facility explained that new screening protocols are now being put in place due to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) determination that the Wuhan coronavirus (CoVid-19) has basically breached containment, and can no longer be controlled.
“As of March 3, 2020, we have halted performing nasopharyngeal testing in our outpatient clinics, including all five urgent care locations,” Evergreen says, noting that the CDC determination is what led to this change.
“The CDC has determined COVID-19 is now endemic, meaning that the virus is now considered to be regularly found in our region amongst our population,” the memo further explains.
While the standard previously was to test only people with known risk factors such as history of travel and exposure to a confirmed case – these being high-risk candidates for acquiring the disease – Evergreen is simply going to stop testing everyone because there’s no real point, the facility has decided.
As a secondary reason for not conducting anymore testing, Evergreen added that there “is an increased risk of transmission when performing any nasopharyngeal testing,” which begs the question: Why was it being performed previously, then?
