If I understand correctly it means that the old tests tested only for covid and the new ones test for covid and influenza at the same time. This makes them more efficient because you won't have to test twice to detect each virus separately.
That's not why they are decommissioning this test though. There's no reason that both this test, and a covid/influenza test cannot coexist.
CDC is explicitly decommissioning this test, and it's not clear why in their announcement.
I'm just trying to gain more context here.
It's pretty easy to see how this could imply that the current PCR test could have issues.
The consequences of this is not neutral because false positives were treated for Covid. No one knows what the consequences of that medical misapplication of treatment was.
Which wording? The one quoted above? That means "if you are switching tests anyways, consider using one that does multiple things so you don't waste (somewhat) scarce and expensive testing capacity on double-testing"
