From TPM Reader and traveler GK …
I just got back from an international business trip. In the last two weeks my travels had me visiting Milan, Italy, Singapore, and Malaysia before ending in Dubai, from which I was banned to travel to either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia because of my recent travel history.
In each of those stops, except Dubai, I had my temperature screened before entering. I was explicitly asked whether I had been to China. The disease’s presence went from background to foreground as it ended up cutting my trip short when KSA and Bahrain denied entry.
I wondered what would happen when I returned to the USA? Yesterday I found out: nothing. I got off the plane and there were no thermal testing centers. Not one of the DHS officials were wearing masks or gloves, there were no signs up or announcements about disease concerns. I use GOES and that scans my picture page, asks me a perfunctory set of non-changing question that do not include anything about COVID-19, and then I hand the receipt to an ungloved, unmasked official who did not review the entry/exit visas in my passport.
I could have just as easily been coming back from a Disaster-Porn photoshoot of Wuhan and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit. Now I’m free to roam about the country. I’m healthy and I really doubt I’m a carrier, but do we know this is going to be the case of everyone coming in? If the government were more interested in actually doing their jobs rather than managing a good press image I’d feel better about the next few months ahead.
