Airline passengers returning to the U.S. were confronted with snaking lines causing hours-long delays and confusion at airports around the country starting Saturday as a result of required medical screenings now in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
Frustrated travelers took to social media to gripe about the winding lines causing passenger congestion in airports including Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, where some travelers reported waits of up to four hours. A U.S. senator from Illinois said he heard of lines stretching on up to eight hours.
This is the scene at O’Hare airport. The traveler who took the photo said it’s a 6-hour wait for bags then on to customs for 2-4 more of waiting in shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Police are handing out water and disinfectant wipes. @fly2ohare #ord #coronavirus #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/UTx9E0nj1s — Brooke Geiger McDonald (@BrookeGMcDonald) March 15, 2020
You announce an impending ban on travel from several countries (misstating the policy so your lackeys have to come in behind you to say “what he meant was...”).
People scramble to get home.
You screen every person coming in.
Thousands of people are smashed in together for hours waiting in line. They are told to share pens to fill out forms.
Any one person probably has seven or eight other people in a six foot radius at any moment. And the crowd is ever-shifting.
If there was a more efficient way to spread a virus, especially one that can be spread without symptoms, I can’t think of it.
Originally posted by pianojuggler: You announce an impending ban on travel from several countries (misstating the policy so your lackeys have to come in behind you to say “what he meant was...”).
People scramble to get home.
You screen every person coming in.
Thousands of people are smashed in together for hours waiting in line. They are told to share pens to fill out forms.
Any one person probably has seven or eight other people in a six foot radius at any moment. And the crowd is ever-shifting.
If there was a more efficient way to spread a virus, especially one that can be spread without symptoms, I can’t think of it.
You have summed that well.
-------------------------------- Several people have eaten my cooking and survived.
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They are deputizing Chicago Fire Dept EMTs to do screenings at ORD.
quote:
A day after thousands of passengers were left waiting for hours at O’Hare International Airport as they faced advance screening for the coronavirus, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Sunday called on the White House and other federal authorities to “offer concrete suggestions on how to avoid or at least mitigate these problems” from now on.
“Last night, we saw that safety and security was seriously compromised and people were forced into conditions that are against [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance and are totally unacceptable,” Lightfoot told reporters at O’Hare.
On Saturday — the first day of increased COVID-19 screening for travelers flying from 16 European countries to 13 U.S. airports — more than 3,000 passengers were stuck inside O’Hare’s international terminal awaiting screening. Similarly chaotic scenes played out at some of the other airports, where passengers were screened for COVID-19 and advised to self-quarantine for 14 days as part of a new policy announced last week by the Trump administration.
Lightfoot on Sunday urged Vice President Mike Pence, the head of Trump’s coronavirus task force, to dialogue with local officials about new policies.
“If you do not listen and you do not bring us along on the journey first, where we can give you constructive input on how those directives will actually be playing out at the local level, you’re going to see more disasters like last night that are solely the responsibility of the federal government,” she said.
Lightfoot said she has had “very frank” discussions with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to express her “concern and disappointment” in how the new directives have been implemented. But she said conversations with federal authorities have been one-sided.
Later Sunday, Lightfoot said that an agreement has been reached with DHS to deputize members of the Chicago Fire Department as screeners at O’Hare: “These are our EMTs, who are providing medical care, every single day.”
