People wearing face masks walk on a street in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Sept. 5.Photo:Xinhua

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its COVID-19 testing guidelines, saying people without symptoms will not be tested even if they are close contacts of a confirmed patient. With the number of COVID-19 infections in the US climbing to 6 million, Chinese experts warned that allowing such a huge loophole would lead the US into a "vicious circle."

The decision appeared to be the result of political pressure and not scientific in origin, some US health officials believed, saying the change could leave the US besieged by epidemic testing failures and shortages, media reported.

Testing asymptomatic carriers who are infectious despite having no symptoms and quarantining them is a globally known effective measure for curbing the spread of the virus, but the US has chosen to deceive itself, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"Leaving silent carriers and asymptomatic close contacts untested would not bring the total infection numbers down, as some US officials wish. In contrast, those infectious sources could bring the virus to a larger population infected anytime in one incubation period, that is to say, 14 days. It will eventually lead the US epidemic into a vicious circle."

The policy change shocked Chinese netizens, with many saying this is "a good illustration of what self-deception is." 

Infection numbers in the US could plummet in a short period of time, as data showed that about 40 to 60 percent of infected people in the country have no symptoms. However, in the long term, the duration of the epidemic will be prolonged, some argued.

"The US is still in the dark period of the epidemic, and the new guidlines are even more confusing," said many netizens in the US, who were at a loss to understand the changes.

The changes made by the CDC clearly did not get overwhelming support from many US health experts and officials, who called on it to give scientific justification for the updated guidelines, CNN reported.

Similar to previous boasts made by Trump, who hailed convalescent plasma as a breakthrough, the new guidelines seems more like leverage for him to gain a political boost. However, this form of scientific ignorance will only be a disaster for the American people, Chinese observers said.