Yesterday, without much or any media fanfare, the CDC quietly released a statement announcing

the expansion of what they call a Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Program.

And in case you've never heard of it before, here specifically how the CDC defines a Traveler-Based

Genomic Surveillance Program.

Quote, Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Program, or TGS for short, is a public-private

partnership that plays an important role in U.S. national bio-security through its two

major goals.

Early detection of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens and filling in gaps in

global bio-surveillance.

And while this particular program was first introduced during the pandemic, specifically

to screen for COVID, this announcement from the CDC may just yesterday informs us that

they are now expanding the program to test for other viruses as well.

Quote, The expansion of the Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Program to the flu, RSV, and

other pathogens is essential as we head into the fall respiratory season.

The TGS program, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, acted as an early warning system

to detect new and rare variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and will do the same for other respiratory

viruses going forward.

In total, this program has now been expanded to screen for over 30 different pathogens outside

of COVID.

Now, according to the CDC, the way that this program will be implemented in practice in airports

across the whole country will be threefold.

For one, it will involve taking nasal swabs of arriving passengers.

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