Health Officials Are Now Tracking COVID-19 Variants at Airports

Travelers are both the conduit and the canary in the coal mine for new COVID-19 variants, and U.S. health officials are trying to use those realities to keep ahead of variants coming into the country. At four U.S. airports—John F. Kennedy in New York, Newark in New Jersey, San Francisco International, and Atlanta Hartsfield—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is partnering with private companies XpressCheck and Concentric by Ginkgo to test incoming passengers for COVID-19. (Washington Dulles is expected to join the program in November.) The testing gives the CDC a heads up on which variants are entering the country and which new ones might be gaining ground and become a threat for the U.S. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Since the program began as a pilot in September 2021, about 12,000 to 15,000 passengers each week have agreed to get their noses swabbed at XpressCheck locations at the airports, and those samples have been pooled together and sent to Ginkgo’s technicians, who run PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 and genetically sequence only those samples that are positive. When Ginkgo’s labs detect new changes to the virus, they alert the CDC and scientists keep a closer eye on changing trends in those mutations. The information is vital for CDC scientists, serving as an early detection system for detecting which new variants are entering the country and could present a threat in the future. Read more: From Massages to Nasal Swa...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news