“You never have enough tests because it's not one and done,” said Peter Pitts, the former Food and Drug Administration associate commissioner and president and co-founder of the think tank, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. “It's not as though I get tested on the list, I'll never need to be tested again. People will need to be tested many times.”
In the view of many public health experts, widespread testing for both symptomatic and asymptomatic people would allow many people to return to their pre-pandemic lives. Today, in contrast, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that testing should only be used for people who have symptoms or were exposed to the virus or for public surveillance. The approach has limited the spread of the disease. But outside experts argue that the administration should prioritize the development and distribution of cheap, easy-to-use tests so that people could test themselves regularly. Doing so would allow the vast majority of people to go about their lives without fear of spreading the disease, they say.
