White House task force kept airport Covid screeners in place despite known risk of infection, source
Source: CNBC
In a nearly 17-year career with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Officer Omar E. Palmer had encountered plenty of precarious situations, from suitcases filled with weapons and drugs to disorderly passengers in John F. Kennedy Airport’s international terminal.
...
Palmer was among hundreds of federal personnel whose responsibilities were adjusted to include evaluating the health of passengers arriving from overseas. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Omar Palmer performed many assigned tasks with professionalism and integrity, his passing was tragic and we kindly ask that you respect his family’s privacy during this difficult time,” an agency spokesman at JFK said.
...
In interviews with dozens of federal employees and task force officials over four months, CNBC learned that the program proved not only ineffective but dangerous from its earliest days. One former official on the White House coronavirus task force estimated that that three- to four-dozen personnel were infected by the end of May. To compare, nine travelers out of thousands screened in the program were detected to have been infected by the end of September.
Yet the White House chose not to dismantle it, in a bid to avoid worrying the public.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/21/white-house-covid-task-force-kept-airport-health-screeners-in-place-despite-risk.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
