#CDC now recommending all people exposed to COVID-19 get tested

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending that anyone who has been exposed to someone infected with COVID-19 to get tested — even if they’re not showing symptoms.

“You need a test” if you’ve been in close contact with someone with COVID-19, the agency advised in new guidance posted to its website Friday.

Close contact is typically defined as being within six feet for at least 15 minutes with someone who is COVID-positive.

“Due to the significance of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, this guidance further reinforces the need to test asymptomatic persons, including close contacts of a person with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the CDC wrote.

The agency’s new guidance marks a reversal from its controversial recommendations from late August that those not showing symptoms may not need to seek testing.

The earlier guidance puzzled experts, who have been warning for months that asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers do spread the virus to others.

“This makes no sense,” Dr. Leana Wen, a physician and former Baltimore health commissioner tweeted at the time about the revised guidelines.

“People without symptoms account for up to 50% of transmission,” Wen wrote. “We need MORE testing, not less.”

Asymptomatic patients account for 40 percent of all coronavirus infections — and half of all transmissions occur before symptoms appear the CDC estimates.

The earlier guidance was not written by CDC scientists and was posted despite their objections, The New York Times reported Thursday.