TSA Screeners Test Positive for Coronavirus
 

Not quite sure how this influenced travelers in-n-out SJC...

https://abc7news.com/health/tsa-work...id-19/6002113/

Need to wait till they provide more details on what shifts these officers took before they tested positive.

3 TSA screeners test positive for Coronavirus San Jose
 

I can't copy a link on this device but the story can be found at The Hill.

NPR has this article about it:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...us-agency-says

Any guess on how many passengers had these 3 TSA employees in their face or otherwise at a distance of less than a yard for more than a couple of seconds?

It’s unfortunate that the TSA won’t get rid of the boarding pass and ID checks, as the elimination of the travel document check to get airside would reduce the chances of passengers being infected by the TSA.

ID are fomites too, and have become worse for it as the country has increasingly gone ID crazy. It’s worse now than it was 10-19 years ago.

Thanks for posting a link.

This, that was not in The Hill article, caught my eye:

Not a peep about how vulnerable passengers are who come in contact with TSA.

The TSA employees and passengers would be less vulnerable if the TSA eliminated the ID and boarding pass checks.

“Social distancing” from no more TSA handling of passenger ID and boarding passes would do us all a favor; and now is as good a time as any to go after DHS-TSA travel document checking as making the homeland less secure.

Here is a link to The Hill article referenced by the OP:

Three TSA employees in California test positive for coronavirus

The article states that the three TSA screeners plus all other employees they had contact with will be quarantined for two weeks. That could be a significant portion of the TSA workers at that airport. But what of the passengers, food service, and vendor, transportation, and others these people made contact with? This example clearly demonstrates just how quickly contamination might spread.

I read yesterday how several cruise ship passenger greeters at Port Everglades have tested positive. I disembarked there two weeks ago. Were they carriers then, did I make contact with any of them? Who knows but it shows just how easily we can become a concern.

Already a thread from yesterday here https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ronavirus.html but this seems like a better place for it. Since TWA884 is active here, perhaps it can be merged.

One should assume everywhere you go at this point, you'll be in contact with someone who is a carrier. SJC, any other airport, and anyone you encounter, anywhere in your travels.

Apparently all three were "on the evening shift at the Terminal B checkpoint" (which certainly suggests it was actively spreading among them and passengers). 42 more agents have been put on leave to self-quarantine. But I'm guessing TSA still has more than enough agents to staff the checkpoints given the current travel environment...

TSA used coronavirus-infected employees to pat down passengers
 

A commenter on the article has asked TSA to stop all security checkpoints since we don't want people standing close together in line and reusing plastic trays from others. Here is the article:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/...vel-documents/

Coronavirus: Infected TSA employees at Mineta San Jose Airport patted down passengers, put hands on travel documents

Positive tests prompted quarantining of 42 workers

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...352473bfc5.jpg
By RICK HURD | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: March 12, 2020 at 2:55 p.m. | UPDATED: March 13, 2020 at 8:01 a.m

Two of the three Transportation Security Administration agents at San Jose’s Norman Mineta International Airport who tested positive for the coronavirus performed pat downs on passengers, the agency revealed Thursday.

The two also handled travel documents, body scanners and carry-on luggage.

That new information came in an email response from the TSA to San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo obtained by this newspaper, which said the TSA had responded to a push from Liccardo, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Santa Clara County Board President Cindy Chavez for more transparency.

The TSA’s response included the duties performed by the three workers who were confirmed to have COVID-19 on Tuesday. Those positive tests prompted the quarantining of 42 workers.

A statement from the TSA late Tuesday said the officers who tested positive were receiving medical care and all of the agency’s employees they came into contact with over the previous 14 days were quarantined at home.

According to the TSA information disclosed in the email Thursday, one of the officers operated the X-ray machine, a body scanner and the walk-through metal detector on Feb. 21, the employee’s last day of work before the sickness. The employee also performed pat-downs on passengers and carry-on luggage bags as needed.

Another employee whose final day before the sickness was Feb. 26 did all of those things and also checked travel documents.

The third employee who tested positive last worked March 2. That employee also checked travel documents and had access to the airport as a “known crew member.”

All three worked in Terminal B and checkpoint B.

“Current TSA standard operating procedures require front-line personnel to wear nitrile gloves when screening an individual or their property, which adds an additional layer of protection,” the agency said in the email to Liccardo. “Gloves are changed after contact with any passenger or their personal property. Any swabs utilized as part of a screening procedure (checkpoint and checked baggage) would not be reused for multiple passengers. Finally, TSA has authorized frontline personnel whose security screening tasks require them to routinely come into close contact with the traveling public to wear surgical masks if they choose to do so.”

The TSA also said in the email that it is continuing to monitor the situation.

Requiring TSA screeners to change gloves and not to reuse ETD swabs has been suggested for years in order to prevent cross contamination. Suggestions made by non-experts in security, just people using common sense based on life experience and observation. Who wants to bet these steps weren't taken previously due to budget constraints?

I maintain that TSA presents a greater threat to me, then and now, than the supposed terrorists that TSA can't seem to find.

For years TSA has been saying that reusing swabs is perfectly fine. Now, in terms of sample testing I disagree with them about that for several technical reasons, but in this one instance where they come out and lie by saying they only use swabs once, they are actually doubly wrong: the swabs are subjected to ~180 degrees C of blown air temp for ~5 seconds. That will kill (almost) any virus. Using the swabs again would be fine in terms of viruses. Using them again in terms of security screening is bad (for the way TSA does it) but that's another thread.

The gloves - no, those aren't changed each encounter either, so TSA is lying on that one too.

Note that this statement is about protection for TSA screeners and not for the protection of the public. That's the way it always has been with TSA and always will be. And, no, screeners do NOT change their gloves after contact with passengers, unless passengers request it.