Florida surgeon general says only symptomatic need COVID testing

A Florida

surgeon

general

wants to change the state's coveted

testing

strategy this way, he

says

we can reduce the long lines they've been seeing at all

testing

sites, but not everyone agrees with his new guidance, let's go with Aaron mesmer from fox 13 who lives at the Progress Village testing site, so what's that like now and what's the overall increase it actually suggests? Well, this site, Cynthia, just closed a little bit ago, so the line that had been here has just slowed down at this point, but we've heard of lines at the testing sites in Tampa Bay that in some cases exceeded one hour.

With that in mind, Florida's

surgeon

general

believes the state

need

s to turn to what he called a high-value testing strategy, but some experts worry that this is

only

going to lead to more people getting sick, so This is sensible. Public Health Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Latipo announces new strategy for Covet 19 testing. Testing people for respiratory viruses when they have no symptoms on a large scale is abnormal. Latipo believes the state's focus should be on testing

only

people who are

symptomatic

, he calls it high value testing, what we did before this pandemic is what was normal, meaning if you have symptoms we will test you. test and you know, if it's positive, we'll treat it, the new guidance brought strong criticism from some experts, including USF Health's Dr.

Thomas Younash, who tracks the coven's impact in Florida if my 97-year-old mother-in-law gets covet 19 um. Dr. Ladapo at this time has nothing to offer you in terms of treatment other than chicken. Sopa Dr. Unesch

says

the state's new approach would only work if there is an effective treatment. He says the monoclonal antibody treatments available in Florida don't work on the omicron variant, so if you can't promise people an effective treatment, what's best? The best way to protect that at-risk population is to not let them get exposed in the first place and he says the best way to do that is to follow CDC guidelines.

The CDC requires a much broader range of testing that includes

symptomatic

or coming people. in contact with a person who tested positive for

covid

and those who are required to be tested by employers or schools, the reason why if you are asymptomatic you can spread the virus, but as wait times for the Testing in Florida is taking longer and demand remains high, says governor. focused on high-risk population Thursday announced the state will send one million home testing kits to nursing homes and long-term care facilities; Those are the demographics that will be most likely to test positive and then turn that into treatment, those kits being sent to long-term care facilities are part of a stockpile the state has built up over the last year or two. months as cases declined, no matter how many of them were told now. expired, so the state is asking the federal government to extend that expiration date on Cynthia right now, they are still waiting to hear back, we sure could use more testing, that's for sure, thank you so much, Erin.