The CDC is still unprepared to respond quickly to disease threats posed by international travel, a US audit finds

The US CDC’s reliance on outdated systems to collect and analyze data on international air travelers continues to hamper its ability to respond quickly to disease threats, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The report said that limitations in how the CDC collects and manages contact information for air travelers makes it difficult to conduct contact tracing and track public health risks. The agency, the GAO found, “is unable to quickly and accurately identify the number of passengers exposed to a specific infected passenger on a flight.” Two and a half years after the coronavirus began to spread across the globe, the GAO said Tuesday that the pandemic “highlighted how unprepared the US public health and aviation systems are to respond to public health threats.” The GAO’s findings carry a sense of urgency this summer, as tourism and travel have begun to approach prepandemic levels even though the Omicron subvariant known as BA.5 is fueling a surge in cases in many countries. In the United States, reported cases have been averaging around 100,000 a day — a figure that is likely to be undercounted given an increasing reliance on at-home testing and the closures of mass testing sites. The GAO did note some changes the agency had made, but said its data systems still needed “substantial improvement.” It said that the CDC had “concurred with the recommendations” in its report, including that the agency redesign its data system or develop a new one. US authorities have made efforts to trace travelers who may have contracted Covid-19 abroad. For example, in late November, when Omicron cases were rising in southern Africa, officials directed airlines to share contact information for passengers who flew from the region into the United States.<br/>