Not only is the cost high for both patients and providers, but the practice is medically useless based on the fact that they simply do not work. (Related: Even the FDA admits that covid testing is pointless because covid has never even been isolated.)
Pre-admission testing, SHEA says, does little, if anything, to prevent transmission of virus. It can also prevent patients from receiving the care they need based on the changes to treatment that are made following a "positive" test result.
The changes come amid a so-called "tripledemic" of not just covid but also seasonal influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that the establishment was trying to scare everyone about in order to push more injections.
Universal covid testing creates a "ripple effect," the group says, that ends up causing delays in how emergency departments deal with patients. This is especially true amid tripledemic surges that see lots of sick people overcrowding the emergency department.
"The use of asymptomatic screening is a unique yet resource-intensive tool that arguably has been overused," the panel wrote in the new guidance, which was published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
"Although it is imperative to prevent healthcare-associated spread of respiratory pathogens, we must critically assess interventions that, when added upon core layers of infection prevention, may not attain the intended impact and may have unintended consequences for patients and HCP."
Covid testing is a farce
If the medical industry truly followed science, asymptomatic testing would have been done away with a long time ago. Even now with this new guidance, it is still unlikely to go away because many American hospitals have gotten used to a protocol of testing everyone, especially those being admitted for surgery.
Recognizing that there will likely be considerable resistance to the new guidelines, SHEA added within them that there are now plenty of ways to mitigate covid that were not available at the start of the scamdemic when universal testing was first implemented.
"With increased population immunity to SARS-CoV-2, milder clinical outcomes, greater access to effective vaccines and therapeutics, and an increased published experience concerning asymptomatic screening, it is important to assess the impact of this intervention and how it should fit into infection prevention programs moving forward," they explain.
Earlier this year, a study conducted by the Cook County Department of Emergency Medicine found that routine asymptomatic testing extended patient wait times in the emergency department by an average of seven hours – which could be a matter of life or death depending on the situation.
Each test also costs around $54 to conduct, on average, which adds immense costs to the hospital budget. Does it really make sense to probe and swab every single person that walks in the door? Does it make sense to test anyone anymore, for that matter?
"The small benefits that could come from asymptomatic testing at this stage in the pandemic are overridden by potential harms from delays in procedures, delays in patient transfers, and strains on laboratory capacity and personnel," says Dr. Thomas Talbot, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University and a member of the SHEA Board of Directors.
Stopping short of fully calling for an end to testing, SHEA still says testing can be done on "high-risk" patients, including those requiring an organ transplant and those diagnosed with cancer.
"This is three years too late," wrote a commenter.
"I have never taken a covid test and never will, nor have I worn a face nappy," added another.
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