House investigators have uncovered what they say are significant gaps in early U.S. attempts to prevent the arrival of coronavirus cases from abroad, particularly among efforts to screen air travelers returning from hot spots like Italy and South Korea at the onset of the global outbreak.
The State Department unveiled a requirement on March 3 that all returning passengers from those countries be screened for fever and symptoms. But U.S. officials opted to rely on their foreign counterparts to conduct those screenings — and depended primarily on airport visits and verbal commitments to ensure they were done, investigators found.
It was a break from the Trump administration’s posture when it restricted travel from parts of China, dispatching Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials to U.S. airports to screen passengers from direct flights as they arrived. And the subcommittee described limited checks on whether the policy was being enforced before it was superseded by President Donald Trump’s more sweeping travel restrictions on Europe on March 14.
The House’s Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy found that just 13 passengers on direct flights from Italy and 56 from South Korea were stopped before boarding planes to the U.S. during this 11-day period, according to State Department data provided to the panel. The subcommittee also indicated that agencies with a hand in the policy — including State, the Department of Homeland Security and the CDC — provided no documentary evidence that screenings were being performed as promised.
And the panel also received no clear explanation why the U.S. policy applied only to direct flights from Italy and South Korea, excluding passengers who had layovers en route to the United States. In written responses, the State Department indicated that the decision was made by Customs and Border Protection. A CBP official disputed this suggestion, however, and said the agency would have had no role in limiting the policy to direct flights.
“After imposing a travel ban and enacting health screenings for travel from China at the start of February, the president told us they had everything under control,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chairman of the Oversight subcommittee. “Yet, the administration did little else to stop the inflow of the virus through our airports until mid-March, and it disregarded valuable opportunities to slow the spread through enhanced entry screenings.”
The White House did not comment. DHS and the CDC did not respond to requests for comment.
The gaps during a crucial stretch at the outset of the U.S. outbreak of coronavirus raise new questions about the country’s readiness to combat the pandemic, and the decision-making at the highest levels of government at a time when Trump was downplaying the threat of the virus.
Trump has, since then, repeatedly pointed to his travel restrictions as an example of his proactive efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus. But the subcommittee’s inquiry suggests some of those early steps may have been inconsistently applied and that the decision to limit the process to direct flights might have had consequences.
The subcommittee launched its investigation in mid-March after receiving letters from U.S. citizens who traveled from Italy and South Korea during the March 3-14 period and asserted they were never screened or that they received minimal information about coronavirus. One, who took a flight from Rome with a layover in Portugal, described “harsh coughing” among some passengers on her flight to Lisbon.
Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the White House’s coronavirus task force, announced the screenings on March 2, telling reporters, “Within the next 12 hours, there will be 100 percent screening, all direct flights at all airports across Italy and across South Korea.”
The recommendation for relying on Italy and South Korea to carry out temperature screenings at their airports came from the CDC and was presented to the task force, which thought that it made sense, according to a Trump administration official familiar with the matter. Top public health officials raised questions about the effectiveness of conducting the physical checks at U.S. airports.
The official said a question was raised about how the U.S. government could verify that the screenings were actually taking place in Italy and South Korea. They were reassured that State Department and Federal Aviation Administration officials in those countries would check to make sure that Italy and South Korea were living up to their promises and such visits did end up happening.
The reason travel from South Korea was not blocked altogether during that time period is that the country offered a comprehensive multi-layer screening to avoid getting slapped with the same order that barred travel from China. After internal discussions, including among doctors, the administration agreed to South Korea’s request.
The official indicated that temperature screening was not instituted at U.S. airports that had flights arriving from Italy and South Korea because the government’s medical and health professionals “did not put too much stock into” such screening, saying it only captured about 40 percent of cases.
Rather, the temperature screening served as a deterrent: If someone wasn’t feeling well, they might rethink going to the airport if they knew they would be stopped from boarding. Another reason that domestic screenings were rejected was the inability of some U.S. airports to install overhead thermal detectors, which require a lot of space some older terminals are not able to accommodate. So it would have been “very manpower intensive” with lots of people with handheld thermometers taking people’s temperature, the official said.
State Department officials told the subcommittee that South Korean airlines began implementing temperature screenings on Feb. 28, earlier than required, amid growing concerns about the outbreak there. U.S. airlines began implementing screenings themselves after Pence’s announcement.
After the U.S. policy announcement, South Korea began implementing a four-step screening process that began at the gate with a temperature check by airlines. By March 5, that process also included a temperature screening in the departure hall, an overhead thermal temperature screening at security checkpoints and a noncontact thermometer screening at the boarding gate. South Korean officials added a questionnaire to the process on March 11.
The State Department provided fewer details about the screening process in Italy, and instead described the sudden surge in cases and deaths that overwhelmed Italy’s health care system.
In the urgency to set up a screening process, State described repeated correspondence and contact between the U.S. Embassy in Rome and senior Italian transportation and health officials. On March 3, U.S. diplomats in Rome and Milan “visited the airports operating flights to the United States to observe the implementation of the screening.” They performed “multiple follow-up visits,” according to the State Department.
An Italian official said authorities started exit procedures for all flights leaving Italy to the U.S. on March 8. Those procedures included temperature checks of passengers at boarding gates. If the passenger had a temperature above 99.5 degrees, Italian officials would interview the passenger and prevent them from boarding if deemed to be a suspected coronavirus case.
State also indicated that the initial burden for screening passengers was placed on airlines but shifted to government entities after some companies raised liability issues about preventing paying customers from traveling, as well as “lack of expertise/equipment.”
Unlike the State Department, CDC officials told the subcommittee that it had no officials on the ground in South Korea and Italy to monitor its effectiveness. It did have a liaison in South Korea who reported by email to the CDC that preboarding temperature screenings were occurring.
During that time, U.S. officials repeatedly warned that most cases were coming from Europe.
“Our real threat right now is Europe, that’s where the cases are coming in from,” CDC Director Robert Redfield told the House Oversight Committee on March 11. “So in a way, if you want to just be blunt, Europe is the new China.”
David Short, deputy assistant secretary of Transportation for aviation and international affairs, said at a Chamber of Commerce event on March 5 that “it was determined” that stopping non-U.S. citizens who had recently been in Italy or South Korea from coming to the United States, as had been done with China, “would not be the most effective response.” He added that “instead … there is a very enhanced level of pre-departure screening of passengers” in those countries.
The Department of Transportation declined to comment on the subcommittee investigation.
The House subcommittee’s findings were part of an ongoing two-month investigation that included an April briefing from officials at the State Department, the CDC and DHS.