California is first state to recommend testing people with no coronavirus symptoms

California is the first state to expand coronavirus testing to some people without symptoms, media outlets reported.

The California Department of Public Health issued a guidance on testing on Sunday, expanding recommendations for testing and designating certain priority as highest priority, according to a release.

The department lists hospitalized patients, symptomatic health care workers, and residents and staff living in high risk settings, such as correctional facilities and congregate living facilities, as “Priority 1.”

Second-highest priority are asymptomatic residents before being admitted to congregate living facilities, asymptomatic health care workers, symptomatic people in public safety and essential health jobs, and symptomatic people over 65 years of age or with chronic medical conditions.

California followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on testing recommendations, which say symptomatic health care workers and hospitalized patients are the highest priority for testing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“California is leading the way,” Brandon Brown, an epidemiologist at UC Riverside, told the Los Angeles Times. “We will be able to test more individuals, identify more people currently with COVID-19, isolate them, and thereby both flatten the curve and prevent the future spread of infection.”

A study published in Nature found people with minor symptoms, including a cough, low-grade fever and headache, are most contagious before they show any symptoms, according to NBC.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield told NPR that “as many as 25%” of people are asymptomatic and “contribute to transmission.”

“Of those of us that get symptomatic, it appears that we’re shedding significant virus in our oropharyngeal compartment, probably up to 48 hours before we show symptoms,” Redfield told NPR. “This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country, because we have asymptomatic transmitters and we have individuals who are transmitting 48 hours before they become symptomatic.”

This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 4:16 PM with the headline "California is first state to recommend testing people with no coronavirus symptoms."