In hunt for Omicron, CDC offered free COVID tests to some flights from Southern Africa
CBSN
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over the weekend began offering passengers coming from Southern African countries free COVID-19 tests as they passed through customs checkpoints at four international airports, in an effort to ramp up surveillance for potential cases of the Omicron variant.
Sequencing the variant that caused any positive tests collected from those travelers at the airport will take up to three days, with passengers sent off with additional at-home tests they were asked to send in after three to five days.
The unplanned expansion of the CDC's airport pilot program is one of a handful of efforts over the past months that the agency has backed to search for new variants of concern like Omicron, which health officials acknowledge could already be spreading within America's borders.
