In the wake of a canceled UC Berkeley football game after dozens of players tested positive for COVID-19, a UCSF health expert is calling for an end to mass-testing of vaccinated individuals.
"If we don't revisit guidelines, in a way, we are always going to be in a pandemic," Dr. Monica Gandhi told KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" on Thursday. "Players will not be able to have a normal life if we keep on testing. Games will be canceled and this will keep on going."
Cal football officials announced on Tuesday that an upcoming game between rivals Cal and USC had been rescheduled for Saturday, Dec. 4 after 44 players, many who were asymptomatic, tested positive for coronavirus. "We have had multiple COVID-19 positives within our program, and we are taking every step we can to mitigate the spread and protect the greater community," the team said in a statement.
However, Gandhi said this incident should not be referred to as an "outbreak." "COVID could be in your nose, but it's not clinically significant if it doesn't make you sick and if it can't pass on to others," she said. "The word outbreak being applied to what happened to this football team is very scary and it makes people think the vaccines don't work."
Instead of testing, a good principle for colleges to employ is a vaccination mandate.
"Many colleges have said 'to come back to school you are going to need to be vaccinated,' and so there are these schools that are 100 percent vaccinated," Gandhi explained. "They don't need to mask, they don't need to mass test because the difference here is that vaccines work."
We have to decide what is clinically meaningful going forward with vaccinations in the context of COVID-19 or we will always be chasing our tail, she said.
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