> If you're not very sick then sure the treatment isn't going to change much. But if you actually need any sort of intervention (rare) they'll give you different drugs than say an Ebola infection.
That's literally what I just said - medical facilities keep pushing COVID testing even though in 99% of cases, it's not going to be used to modify the diagnosis or treatment. As you said, the other ~1% or less of cases that might make a assist or alter a decision based on information provided by the test is rare, and nor did I say that in that scenario that it shouldn't be done.
> Unclear how you know if you're not contagious if you don't actually know what you're sick with.
There's more than just COVID testing, and some tests can reveal an infection that isn't contagious. For example, many bacterial infections are no longer considered contagious after ~24 hours of antibiotic use [1]. A positive on a bacterial infection can give enough confidence on the risk of being contagious.
However, with a negative COVID test, you could (1) still have COVID, or (2) have another infection that is contagious. Doctors can't assume you have strep throat or a sinus infection from a negative COVID test, but doctors can make a diagnosis based on a positive strep test that you don't have something else based on your symptoms.
[1] https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/infections/how-lo...
