We left Lusaka on Friday and arrived in Atlanta yesterday. In Lusaka before security our temp was taken with an infrared thermometer and we were given a questionnaire to complete before going through a second screening.

In Joburg, which had closed its borders to people from high risk countries including the US, had it not been more than 20 days since we'd been there we wouldn't have been allowed into the airport to make our connection. And they took our temp as we got off the plane.

As we were preparing to depart Joburg on Delta we were told CDC folks would board the plane when we landed in Atlanta before we got off. But CDC was a no show. Not only that, there was no health screening whatsoever as we transited through immigration and customs with our baggage.

Color me unimpressed with the U.S. protocol. I've heard similar experiences from others arriving at other major U.S. airports.

Well, since we've lost containment and this pandemic is in full swing it isn't then surprising. Stay at home like everybody else and if you have symptoms, isolate.

• Drove from the airport to the house we're staying at and began our 14 day quarantine. Brought our toilet paper from Zambia. Not sharing our address.

One-Eyed Fat Man said:

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We left Lusaka on Friday and arrived in Atlanta yesterday. In Lusaka before security our temp was taken with an infrared thermometer and we were given a questionnaire to complete before going through a second screening.

In Joburg, which had closed its borders to people from high risk countries including the US, had it not been more than 20 days since we'd been there we wouldn't have been allowed into the airport to make our connection. And they took our temp as we got off the plane.

As we were preparing to depart Joburg on Delta we were told CDC folks would board the plane when we landed in Atlanta before we got off. But CDC was a no show. Not only that, there was no health screening whatsoever as we transited through immigration and customs with our baggage.

Color me unimpressed with the U.S. protocol. I've heard similar experiences from others arriving at other major U.S. airports.

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You'd been screened already. At DFW, CDC is right there with Customs.

If out flights aren't canceled we will be flying in through ATL from Spain via Amsterdam on wednesday. I'll post what we go through.

How much extra time is this taking? My exchange student has a 12:30 flight out of Houston tomorrow. Houston > Toronto > Frankfurt

I was going to drop her at 9:30. Is that enough time?

Let me ask you this - cdc comes on board and you have a 99.8 temp. What happens next? I'm being serious - what do folks want or think should happen if someone in authority determines you have a fever? Tell you go to home? Drag you off to a containment camp?

My boss's daughter just came home from Madrid, where there is massive spread of the virus. To her knowledge she doesn't have the virus, but she was not even screened when she went through the airport at the U.S. She is quarantining herself anyways.

Bottlerocket said:

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Let me ask you this - cdc comes on board and you have a 99.8 temp. What happens next? I'm being serious - what do folks want or think should happen if someone in authority determines you have a fever? Tell you go to home? Drag you off to a containment camp?

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Per Trump, if you were found to be infected coming into an airport from outside the country, you would be put in quarentine for 2 weeks before being allowed to return home.

My wife an I fully expect that if when we get to the ATL customs and we have a fever that we will be put in some type of quarantine be it a special hotel or something. We have laptops and work from home so we are fine with that.


Otherwise, if we check out fine, we go home and self quarentine for 2 weeks.

I canceled A return flight and decided to drive home yesterday. Flight went through Atlanta. 13 hour drive. My concern was coming into contact in Atlanta or on the plane. Sounds like I made the correct decision. You'd expect that TSA would check everyone's temperature at security check in across the entire country and check at customs if you are arriving from overseas. Sounds like that was not the case.

Yea, I'm sure SA and Zambia sent word ahead. Yeah, right.

And no sign of CDC anywhere, in the city where they are headquartered.

For what it's worth, Zambia now has three confirmed cases. All three were caught as they came into the country through the airport as a result of screening and didn't have a chance to get into the general population. They know their healthcare system isn't up to dealing with the spread of the disease and are being very proactive in their efforts to control before it becomes a crisis. I'm hopeful they are successful.

Feels like we are still unorganized playing catch-up. Hopefully that will turn around quickly.

Rutedown said:

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Feels like we are still unorganized playing catch-up. Hopefully that will turn around quickly.

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We are. It's obvious isn't it?

Most of the country still isn't locked down.

This will get much worse before we all start taking it seriously unfortunately.

What good is a temp screening when there is a 2 week latency period? Those people doing the screenings should be working as Door Dash drivers or Kroger shoppers.

94chem said:

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What good is a temp screening when there is a 2 week latency period? Those people doing the screenings should be working as Door Dash drivers or Kroger shoppers.

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Because if you have a fever, you are actively contagious and need to be isolated immediately. If you just got infected, the 2 week self quarantine should cover it.

I can't see us being allowed to Zambia before August and to be honest, that's probably wishful thinking. As the U.S. is now considered a high risk country we were really lucky to be able to leave Zambia and transit through the Johannesburg airport. To be honest, we don't know if we'll be able to go back at all, but we hope to. I've been looking for used dog crates on Craigslist to ship to a former PCV who just went to work for an NGO and stayed in Chipata about two hours away from Lundazi. We're already talking to her about how she can help us get Gus and Woodrow to the US if it looks like we'll be here a long time.

You should quarantine either way. The check is unnecessary.

Glad you came home, why didn't you just stay, then you wouldn't have these worries

AustinAg2K said:

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You should quarantine either way. The check is unnecessary.

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Yep. I'd have a fever anyway just from being stuck in coach with no sleep for 36 hours.

Came home from Germany through DFW on Monday. They gave us a questionnaire to fill out of the plane consisting of where have you been and do you have symptoms? When we got to the customs agent, he asked where we had been and when we said Germany, he had a lady in an EMS uniform come over. She asked us if we had a cough, fever, and maybe one other symptom. We said no and she said okay.

In total, it only took 20 minutes from exiting the plane to making it through customs.

Because of my age and the fact I'm living with an ascending aortic aneurysm, it puts me in a higher risk category. We could have sheltered in place at our house and probably been fine - our own well, generator, stocked freezer and pantry. But if I were to get sick, more susceptible to complications per my doc. Besides, do you not want me here?

Exact same thing happened to my coworker when he arrived back in the States last Sunday. He was in Prague for spring break and then had a layover of almost 10 hours in Madrid, Spain.

He was told when he arrived in DFW that he would be screened. He was given a health questionnaire on the plane to fill out, but when they landed at DFW and he went through customs, there was no health screening or temperature test taken. They weren't even questioned or asked to self quarantine...... And they came from Spain!

Seems ridiculous and I don't understand....

I find the approach to managing this to be troubling.

AustinAg2K said:

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You should quarantine either way. The check is unnecessary.

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Yet all these other countries are being proactive and actually doing it. There are levels of quarantine. If you got it and have a family you need to quarantine yourself in area of your house away from them. Quarantining yourself to your house and freely moving about you're likely to spread it to other family members.

Yeah, the lack of airport screening (and those pictures of people all crammed together at the airports they funneled everyone to a week or so ago) was one of the first big signs that what you were hearing from the top levels of government on how this was being handled and how it was actually being handled were two completely different things.

That, combined with that ridiculous website they promoted 10 days or so ago that wasn't anything like what they were describing, and the lack of being able to actually answer a simple question on when masks, etc... would be in the hands of hospitals (instead of just saying "they are on their way") kinda shows how much of a clown show this really is on the top level.

Really feel for the hospital people on the local level, it has to be incredibly stressful to be in these situations and not really have any support from above.

AustinAg2K said:

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You should quarantine either way. The check is unnecessary.

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The check isn't unnecessary. The check hammers home to the people coming in that they need to be quarantining. Otherwise you have people that assume if the aren't checked than they are fine.

You'll say people don't assume that, but they do.

A large % of our population are absolute idiots. They have to be told to do something, you can't just assume they listen to the news or have any kind of common sense.

99% of the time that's not a problem. The smart reap the benefits of the dumb being dumb... But not in a case where the dumb can spread something to the smart.

You're right that people will assume they are fine... But they'll also assume they are fine if they pass a fever test, even though they may be a carrier. To really lock things down, the fed should say your are required by law to quarantine yourself after traveling overseas, regardless of symptoms.

AustinAg2K said:

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You're right that people will assume they are fine... But they'll also assume they are fine if they pass a fever test, even though they may be a carrier. To really lock things down, the fed should say your are required by law to quarantine yourself after traveling overseas, regardless of symptoms.

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I agree... and I don't necessarily disagree with you that it's pointless to have the screening if at this point we should all be assuming we have it.

I just really think there's been a large disconnect between what kind of screening we say we're going to be doing and the reality. If a reporter asked in a press conference tomorrow if people coming in to airports from out of the country were being screened, we'd be told "Absolutely". Yet this story reads verbatim to one a week or so ago with the in-flight announcement of CDC boarding, then them not boarding and no screening whatsoever.

There's what we're being told is happening and then there's what should be happening but isn't.

Which is why we keep having to have more and more restrictions, because your average person still thinks that there's elbow bumps are fine and that people buying toilet paper is silly because the virus doesn't impact your digestion system (when most reports say now it's one of the most reported symptoms).

I don't mean this to be political as I'm not necessarily a fan of either side - but it's hard to blame people making stupid decisions when even if you are listening to the CDC and the White House 24/7 you still don't really have a clear picture of what is going on and what we should be doing.