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CDC Expands Program To Ask Certain Travelers For Nasal Swabs At American Airports

https://www.miamiherald.com/living/travel/article286625965.html?

https://apnews.com/article/cdc-airport-surveillance-chicago-miami-bd2eff1faf297003fc408a732c1db546

Excerpt:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expanded a program that tests international travelers for COVID-19 and other illnesses.

The public health agency’s program requests arriving international travelers to volunteer for a nasal swab and answer questions about their travel.

On Tuesday, the CDC announced the program would include two new airports – Miami and Chicago’s O’Hare.

Voluntary nose-swabbing began Tuesday at Miami International Airport as part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s traveler-based genomic surveillance program. Seven other major airports have the program, including in New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Nose-swabbing is also coming to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Sticking a swab up your nose at MIA will be voluntary, anonymous and free, according to the CDC. People who participate will also answer a short survey that includes demographic and travel-related questions, including age, information on travel destinations, and the reason for traveling.

You must be at least 18 for the swabbing and survey. And yes, there is a prize.

Travelers will see signs, a table and staff promoting the testing as they are exiting Customs in Terminal D. The CDC says the swab and survey will take about two to five minutes to complete. At the moment, the CDC will be testing MIA travelers for COVID, but will eventually expand the testing to include flu and RSV.

“Miami and Chicago enable us to collect samples coming from areas of the world where global surveillance is not as strong as it used to be,” said the CDC’s Allison Taylor Walker, according to the Associated Press.

“What we really need is a good view of what’s happening in the world so we’re prepared for the next thing,” she added.

CDC officials said the nasal swabs are to learn more about “respiratory infections” from Asia, Africa, and South America.

.....Health officials also have been sampling wastewater that comes off international flights at a few airports. That testing is for COVID-19, but CDC officials are evaluating the possibility of monitoring wastewater for other things, Walker said.

The CDC program has a current budget of about $37 million. The agency pays two companies, Ginkgo Bioworks and XWell, to do sample collection and testing. The companies are working with CDC to grow the program to check for more than 30 different disease-causing germs.
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As if nasal swabbing is accurate. Another reason not to fly. More bs from the CDC which needs to be tried for crimes against humanity and disbanded in totality.