The tests at the airport are part of the government’s early precaution formula for new variants, which recently began expanding following a COVID-19 outbreak in China.
With the addition of Los Angeles and Seattle, there are now seven airports where arriving passengers can volunteer for COVID-19 testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s program now covers about 500 flights from at least 30 countries, more than a portion of which are from and around China.
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Starting Thursday, the CDC is also asking passengers traveling to the U. S. to travel to the U. S. U. S. citizens from China, Hong Kong and Macau to get tested for COVID-19 no more than two days before and provide a negative result before boarding a flight.
And later, some scientists call for a broader use of another strategy: filtering sewage from tanks when planes arrive.
“Without surveillance, it’s very difficult to know what’s going on,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. “Hopefully, with more samples, we’ll get more data on what’s going on. “around. “
Some scientists worry that the COVID-19 outbreak in China could release a new mutant coronavirus into the world, as infection is another possibility for the virus to change. There is no sign of a new variant coming from China at this time. But one explanation for why for the new testing requirements, according to the CDC, is China’s lack of sufficiently good and transparent data on virus strains infecting other people there.
“We have very little about what’s happening elsewhere,” said CDC representative epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina. “What we can do is what happens in the United States. “
The airport’s program is based on an unfortunate reality: “Travelers. . . are temporarily global and can contract and spread infectious diseases very temporarily,” said Dr. Brown. Cindy Friedman, fitness branch leader at CDC.
Friedman said the program is a partnership with two companies that handle testing and lab work: XpresCheck and Concentric through Ginkgo. A pilot program was expanded when the first variant of omicron appeared in the U. S. The U. S. Army has been in the U. S. for more than a year. In addition to Newark, Seattle and Los Angeles, the program includes Kennedy in New York, Dulles in Washington and airports in Atlanta and San Francisco.
The most recent expansion of the traveler tracking program aims to capture more flights from China. But on Wednesday in Newark, some of the target planes arrived from Mexico, France and Belgium. and fill out a form. Chandra said it took about a minute.
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Like other travelers, you won’t get the results. But he gets tested for COVID-19 when he flies to Ohio every two months to see his mother, he said, because “the last thing I should do is bring (the virus) home for her. “
About 10% of other people on directed flights volunteer as volunteers. Your samples are pooled and analyzed via PCR. Positives are genetically sequenced. Volunteers get advantages from loose COVID-19 testing at home.
Over time, Friedman expects the program to grow and go global. It has already been shown to stumble upon coronavirus variants early, by finding variants of omicron BA. 2 and BA. 3 and reporting them to a global database weeks earlier than others.
But Jetelina said a surveillance program at seven airports is “that important,” so looking for variants could be like “looking for a needle in the haystack. “
To make the search easier, experts take more samples from airplane toilets.
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“It’s a little disgusting when you think about it,” Jetelina said. But those are very long flights and we would expect most other people to go to the bathroom. “
The CDC, which monitors wastewater in municipal systems, introduced a pilot program last summer to control wastewater from planes at Kennedy Airport. Friedman said the company is running to expand this surveillance.
These controls have been used elsewhere. A paper published last year in the journal Environment International tested the sewage checks of 37 charter flights to bring Australians home before the pandemic, concluding that the practice “can provide an additional and effective tool” for tracking the virus’ access to a country. Recently, Canada announced an expanded wastewater pilot program and Belgium said it would review wastewater from China’s planes.
As surveillance continues, scientists claim that the BF. 7 omicron variant, which is incredibly adept at evading immunity, is behind the existing surge in China. CDC knowledge shows that BF. 7 is already in the U. S. The U. S. government currently accounts for about 2% of COVID-19 cases. Cases. The most common mutant in the United States is XBB. 1. 5, another variant responsible for 41% of cases in the United States. Ray said it attaches more closely than its competition to a receptor that allows viruses to enter a cell.
Scientists have said the virus will continue to evolve, so they will have to keep looking for new variants. The coronavirus is like a predator that stalks humanity, Ray said, and “the predator adapts to the prey. “