No SARS testing at U.S. airports

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Tuesday, April 8, 2003 | By Paul Sperry

[JohnHuang2]

WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials have advised airport immigration inspectors to admit foreign travelers from Asian countries hit hard by a deadly new pneumonia bug – even if they show symptoms of infection, U.S. inspectors complain.

"A good 90 percent of all passengers arriving from Asia are wearing face masks during the flights that arrive here," said a Bureau of Customs and Border Protection inspector at Los Angeles International Airport, which gets heavy Asian traffic. "Yet there are basically no safeguards set up at the airport to safeguard against the spread of germs here."

He told WorldNetDaily that LAX, the nation's fourth-busiest airport, has no quarantine area set up at any of its four international terminals to detain and isolate passengers with symptoms related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, which has now killed more than 100 people and infected some 2,600 in 20 countries. China's southern Guangdong province, which includes Hong Kong, is believed to be the source of the virus, which has about an eight-to-10-day incubation period.

"We are not detaining any persons and requiring them to submit to any test prior to being admitted to the United States," said the officer. In a meeting last week, he and other inspectors were briefed about the fast-spreading virus by Health and Human Services Department officials assigned to LAX.

Travelers from Asia with signs of the illness, such as fever or breathing difficulties, are asked by federal health officials at the airport to fill out a form with their name and the address where they will be staying, as well as other information, he explains. They are then simply advised to see a doctor for testing, and allowed to enter the U.S.

The information is forwarded to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

"The are doing a numbers game only," the LAX inspector said.

CDC personnel have inspected certain flights from Asia after passengers have deplaned, he says.

"But there has been no instance where anyone has been detained or isolated due to any symptoms," he said.

An HHS spokeswoman here referred questions to the CDC in Atlanta, which did not immediately return phone calls.

A U.S. immigration officer at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, the nation's busiest, says a Chinese passenger recently was detained there after exhibiting signs of SARS, but was released after health officials determined that she was not infected with the virus. O'Hare over the past year has seen a surge in undocumented nationals from mainland China.

"She apparently just had a cold," the officer told WorldNetDaily.

He says public health officials have met Asian passengers at the gates to quiz them about symptoms they may be experiencing, while handing out information about SARS and local clinics.

Authorities in Thailand, in contrast, have subjected all foreign travelers, including Americans, to medical examinations upon entering airports there, while imposing strict quarantines on travelers diagnosed with SARS.

Airport authorities there and in other Asian countries have started wearing surgical gloves and masks.

Federal inspectors at O'Hare are wearing neither protective gear, but LAX inspectors have been advised by federal health officials to wear gloves while handling passports and other documents.

"We were told to wash our hands frequently and to wear gloves in the handling of documents," he said.

However, "we are not allowed to wear face masks during an inspection," based on orders from immigration supervisors, he added.

The SARS virus is believed to be spread by air, through coughing and sneezing, as well as by contact.

"We were told under no circumstances would we be allowed to wear face masks while in uniform," he said. "If someone coughs or spits up, we were told to call the floor rover or supervisor and have that person escorted to Public Health."

In lieu of the masks, a few inspectors have purchased small table fans to direct air away from their booths, he says.

Though still a medical mystery, SARS has a relatively low death rate of 4 percent. By comparison, at least a quarter of a million people around the world die from the common flu each year.

[aristeides]

CDC getting record calls on SARS .

[joesnuffy]

U.S. health officials have advised airport immigration inspectors to admit foreign travelers from Asian countries hit hard by a deadly new pneumonia bug – even if they show symptoms of infection, U.S. inspectors complain.

Tommy Thompson...the same genius who proclaimed that there were going to be MANDATORY small pox vaccinations whether you liked it or not.. (in Wi his lackey Greg Undereheim State Rep Oshkosh Wi. claimed anyone who didnt like it was looney etc)

Must now be responsible for allowing Asians who are SYMPTOMATIC of SARS to be admitted to America...

Kinda a traitorus act if this stuff is contagious and fatal isnt it?...

of course the small pos epidemic didnt manifest itself...much to the chagrin of power hungry beurocrats...

Perhaps SARS is their second chance?... I do know the borders are porus enough...even the immigration people are upset by this..according to the article

[unspun]

One can specify that people from certain nations will not be allowed to deplane without "a note from their doctor" in the prior 48 hours indicating that he/she has found no symptoms of SARS -- and since they must have that in order to get thru customs, the folks at the point of departure should not choose to allow them on the plane in the first place.

(If necessary though, we could foot the bill to send the "WOP's" back.)

[discostu]

So basically you want to move the quarantine over to somebody else's country. Make them lock up all their outgoing people for 48 hours to determine they have no symptoms of SARS. All your doing is shifting the impossible task to another country. Or forcing them to line up a bunch of "doctors" in their international airports to lie and say everybody is symptom free. Once again completely ineffective and doesn't address any of the basic problems:
How do you know somebody has SARS?
How long does it take to know somebody has SARS?
How long must SARS incubate before any test will know somebody has SARS?
Where will everybody be stored while we're deciding if they have SARS?

You're now back to the original answer which can't work, mass testing, only your shifting the duty over to the Chinese government instead of ours. That's no solution.

[unspun]

No. Not completely ineffective. Suppose this wasn't SARS, but it was a highly contagious and deadly hemorrhagic fever. C'est la vie? Laissez Faire? Too much hassle. Too costly. Better to "die and reduce the surplus population...."

[discostu]

The same question apply REGARDLESS of the name of the disease:
Can it be tested for?
How long does the test take?
How long is the incubation period before it'll show up on test?
Where do you put everybody until the incubation and testing periods are done?

As long as there isn't an effective test for it ALL plans are 100% GARAUNTEED to be COMPLETELY ineffective. With the tests you then must store everybody somewhere until the incubation period is done, then you have to test them and keep them until the test results are in. That is the ONLY way to stop a disease from entering. Anything else is just pissing in the wind and is will do nothing but waste time and money on hollow feel good efforts that are COMPLETELY ineffective.

[Dont Tread On Me Eh?]

Then there's the option of just banning people from certain nations for a time. There are options

The third-highest rate of SARS in the world is in Canada - with the amount of trade ($1.25 billion DAILY) between the U.S. and Canada, it's utterly absurd to consider closing that border.

[riri]

with the amount of trade ($1.25 billion DAILY) between the U.S. and Canada, it's utterly absurd to consider closing that border

What makes all that trade occur in the first place is commerce. No one is going to be buying, building or selling anything if everyone is too afraid to leave their house, hospitalized or dead. This thing is a fiasco anyway you slice it, if it can't be contained.

[unspun]

I find your scenario needlessly perfectionistic.

[discostu]

I don't have a scenario, I'm pointing out the absolute minimum that a scenario MUST have in order to accomplish ANYTHING. If you can't test for SARS you can't stop it at the border, period. If you can test for SARS you'll only be able to stop it the border if you can stop the people with it long enough to get the test results, period. You'll only stop fresh victims (ie people that caught if from somebody else on the plane or in their departure airport) if you can keep them through the incubation period before giving the test, period. If you're going to be keeping all these people during the incubation and testing period and you want the test to actually accomplish something you'll have to keep them quarentined away from the general populace, period. Anything less than that cannot accomplish ANYTHING, period.

The thread was started because somebody at WND is aghast that testing isn't being done, well what I've outlined above is what MUST happen for any effective form of testing. Anybody not willing to go that route doesn't really want testing, they want to bitch and complain.

This is the MINIMUM, nowhere near perfection. If you want perfectionistic I can start getting into the decon procedures that will need to be run on the airport and airplanes to stop lingering infections, but currently we have no data on SARS indicating that kind of stuff would be necessary. Haven't even gotten into treatment procedures and decontamination methods for medical professionals involved in treatment, that's perfection. Sealed treatment wards with only rubber glove access from positive preasure rooms, that's perfection. My questions are the basics that must be considered for minor effectiveness.