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COVID-19: Texas, Mississippi are the first to return to pre-pandemic standards
The governors of both states have signed executive orders canceling the facial mask mandates and are returning to pre-pandemic standards.
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Public health experts have criticized states like Texas and Mississippi, which threw aside masking mandates this week at a critical juncture in the nation’s pandemic.
But they also warn of another threat to difficult gains in recent weeks – the number of Americans getting tested for coronavirus has dropped significantly since January.
While the slowdown in testing may be the result of fewer infections, it can also signal that many Americans are becoming complacent as the second year of COVID-19 progresses and millions are vaccinated every week.
The test remains one of the main efforts to control COVID-19, along with the use of masks, social distance, avoiding crowded enclosures and hand hygiene. While officials are optimistic, vaccines will offer protection, some warn that the country may be letting its guard down before enough Americans are protected from the virus.
“A lot of people are kind of tired of the pandemic,” said Mary K. Hayden, professor of internal medicine and pathology at Rush Medical College in Chicago.
In January, labs and other test sites completed an average of nearly 1.9 million tests a day, as cases reached record levels. The daily test average dropped to 1.5 million in February and 1.3 million so far in March, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
Hayden said the country’s tests never reached levels that public health officials deemed “adequate or optimal” for controlling the virus.
“We never got there,” said Hayden, a fellow at the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “And now we are falling.”
Testing declines, social distance decreases
The test was difficult to achieve when the first major outbreaks emerged last spring in the metropolitan area of Seattle and New York. The nation has slowly built capacity with private laboratories, and now the US can test more than 2 million a day.
This current slump is not the first time that Americans are looking for fewer tests. In the summer, tests dropped in several southern states before cases came back in full force.
Daily cases still exceed late summer and fall levels, but fewer people in the past few weeks have probably been exposed to the virus compared to the peak in January. That means fewer people are experiencing symptoms that require them to get tested.
As the pandemic progresses into the second year, people are less willing to screen for the virus, Hayden said. At the beginning of the pandemic, people sought the test, even without symptoms or mild symptoms, because they were concerned about the virus. Now, based on anecdotal reports, it appears that fewer non-symptomatic people are being tested, she said.
Another factor: public health agencies are focusing limited resources on vaccinating more Americans. Former large test sites, such as Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, have been converted into mass vaccination sites.
As the tests subside, public health officials are concerned about the state government’s recent initiatives to close social distance.
The governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Montana and Iowa have declared that the masks are no longer needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Of those five states, data from Johns Hopkins University shows that only the proportion of positive Montana tests in the past week is less than 5%, the limit recommended by the World Health Organization before reopening.
While local governments and private companies can make their own choices about wearing masks in public places, such as restaurants, the elimination of state mask prescriptions and allowing more people to assemble inside the home undermines virus control strategies that have been instrumental in reducing the spread of COVID-19 said Romney Humphries, professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
She said that relaxing social distance contributes to “a general culture of the pandemic is diminishing” and may convince some people that testing is less important.
“All of these things are creating a sense for the public that the pandemic is over,” said Humphries. “This is by no means true.”
Only 21% of adults received at least one dose of the vaccine by Thursday, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Four out of five American adults have not been vaccinated.
Even those who received only one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine are not fully protected. With Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine boosting vaccine supplies across the country, President Joe Biden said there should be enough doses for all Americans by the end of May.
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Dr. Rebecca Weintraub, assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said people are not fully protected until two weeks after receiving both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
And although the initial data is positive, it is not yet known whether the vaccine prevents the virus from spreading from one immunized person to others.
“What we do know is that the virus is circulating in our communities,” said Weintraub. “And then one of the most effective ways to understand if I am infected or I may be infected is to get tested.”
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The College of American Pathologists said that members noticed a “significant decrease” in the number of tests at health institutions across the country.
In the Seattle metropolitan area, tests have dropped along with new cases. In the University of Washington laboratory, tests increased in late autumn. The tests are now about half the peak this fall, said Geoffrey Baird, interim president of medicine and laboratory pathology at the University of Washington.
The launch of the vaccine is a crucial period that Baird and others are watching. If vaccination efforts slow, more states relax mask rules and new variants gain traction, this could lead to another big increase in cases, Baird said.
“All of us in the testing business are wondering what will happen in the next two months,” he said.
Hayden said the public must remain vigilant, even if more and more people are vaccinated.
“Although infection rates are much lower, they are still high,” said Hayden. “I think we have not yet reached a point where we can really relax our overall strategies and reduce testing.”
Contributing: Karen Weintraub
Contact Ken Alltucker at [email protected]