The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently expanded their traveler surveillance program in an effort to detect new variants of the coronavirus. The program now covers 500 flights from 30 different countries, including more than half from China and surrounding areas, and seven airports now offering volunteer COVID-19 testing. The CDC also requires travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macao to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel, and provide a negative result before boarding a flight.
In addition, some scientists are calling for wider use of an additional strategy to monitor the virus coming into a country: screening wastewater from toilet tanks on arriving airplanes. This has already been used in other countries and a study conducted last year concluded that it "can provide an additional and effective tool". The CDC is also working to expand this type of surveillance.
Volunteers for the CDC program receive free home COVID-19 tests and the program has already shown its ability to spot coronavirus variants early, detecting omicron variants BA.2 and BA.3 and reporting them to a global database weeks before others did.
The CDC's expanded traveler surveillance program is an effort to detect new variants of the coronavirus and provide insight into the virus's evolution. The program covers 500 flights from 30 different countries, seven airports offering volunteer COVID-19 testing, and requires travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macao to take and provide a negative COVID-19 test result before boarding a flight. Additionally, scientists suggest wider use of wastewater screening from toilet tanks on arriving airplanes. Volunteers for the program receive free home COVID-19 tests and the program has already been successful in spotting new variants. With the virus continuing to evolve, programs like this are important to monitor the spread of the virus.