Here ’s How the CDC Will Track Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season

If you’ve traveled overseas recently, you might have been greeted upon your return by people in a handful of airport terminals in the U.S. recruiting passengers to get tested for the COVID-19 virus. It’s been a surprisingly productive way to keep track of how much COVID-19 might be entering the country, via travelers, as well as which variants they are bringing in. Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, the program’s operators, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Concentric by Ginkgo Bioworks (a Boston-based biotech firm), and XpresCheck, which recruits and tests the passengers, are expanding the screening to include viruses other than SARS-CoV-2. Since October, the program has been screening a subset of samples from travelers for influenza and RSV. Eventually, the program will phase in 30 more pathogens. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Since the program launched in 2021, the Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance (TGS) program has provided a crucial window into how the COVID-19 virus is circulating, especially since more people are relying on at-home tests that don’t require them to report results. About 6,000 passengers arriving in seven major international U.S. airports are tested each week on a voluntary basis. They also provide basic, non-identifying information about where their flight originated, and other countries included in their itinerary; and answer questions about their vaccination status, age,...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news