The CDC warned against a ‘poorly designed’ plan to implement temperature screenings at 20 US airports. The White House is reportedly moving forward with it anyway.
Temperature checks do not account for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, pre-symptomatic cases, or people with COVID-19 who do not have a fever.
(Business Insider) – The Trump administration reportedly ignored guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over temperature screenings at airports and plans to go ahead with them, even though they were ineffective in initially preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the US.
The move, which would require temperature screenings at 20 US airports, was detailed in leaked documents reported by USA Today on Saturday. In an email to officials at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Martin Cetron, the director of global mitigation and quarantine at the CDC had argued “thermal scanning as proposed is a poorly designed control and detention strategy as we have learned very clearly.”
“We should be concentrating our CDC resources where there is impact and a probability of mission success,” he said, adding he wasn’t even sure whether his agency had the legal authority to participate in the administration’s effort.
“Please kindly strike out CDC from this role,” he said in the email, USA Today reported.
