CDC scientists overruled in White House push to restart airport fever screenings for COVID-19
The White House is pushing a return to relying on temperature screening of air travelers to detect coronavirus despite vehement objections from the nation's top public health agency, internal documents obtained by USA TODAY show.
The discord underscores the diminished standing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as local governments, businesses and community leaders seek direction on how to reopen safely.
Emails show CDC scientists, who have owned up to initial missteps in the federal response, trying to persuade the administration to reconsider.
The White House directive to check travelers in 20 U.S. airports for fever comes after efforts by the CDC to screen travelers returning from China failed to stop the global pandemic from reaching the USA.
“Thermal scanning as proposed is a poorly designed control and detection strategy as we have learned very clearly,” Dr. Martin Cetron, the CDC’s director of global mitigation and quarantine, wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security officials Thursday. “We should be concentrating our CDC resources where there is impact and a probability of mission success.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/05/09/white-house-push-airport-fever-screenings-overrules-cdc-scientists/3097158001/
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