Regardless of vaccination availability and total number of COVID-19 cases, people who exhibit symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus infection — cough, fever, congestion, fatigue, headache, loss of sense of smell, to name a few — should continue to get tested. 

The same is true for those who suspect that they’ve been exposed to someone with the disease, even if they themselves have been vaccinated or previously had COVID-19, experts say. 

Testing is important for two reasons:

1. It warns the individual person.
2. It provides surveillance that allows us to find out what we can do about the disease from a public health perspective.

This is even more crucial with the new, possibly more contagious variants of the coronavirus now spreading rapidly in the United States.