Coronavirus infections have spiked during the past three weeks among Transportation Security Administration officers at Orlando International Airport.
Prior to the pandemic, Orlando International had ranked as the nation’s 10th busiest for passenger volume. With nearly 40 reported cases, the airport now ranks fifth among U.S. airports for the number of COVID-19 cases reported by TSA personnel.
But the agency does not attribute the recent jump in cases to officers’ potential exposure to infected passengers passing through security checkpoints even as the number of outbound travelers is rising.
TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said “most if not” all infections among TSA staff at Orlando International Airport are occurring while officers are off duty.
“Unfortunately, we are tracking the escalating trend in Orange County,” Koshetz said.
Florida is outpacing nearly all other states in the rate of new cases of COVID-19 and Orange County is among the top counties in Florida for new cases.
“The vast majority of our officers live in Orange County,” Koshetz said, adding that nearly 1,100 TSA personnel are assigned to Orlando’s airport.
The spike in cases has occurred as the agency is ramping up the number officers relative to the number of passengers at checkpoints at airports across the nation to ensure social distancing.
“The way we maintain that social distancing as best we can is to open more lanes than we typically would so that the wait times to get through TSA screening are reduced substantially from what they were before COVID-19,” said David Pekoske, the agency’s administrator.
By April 14, there had been 14 cases of COVID-19 among Orlando’s TSA officers.
But in those first weeks of the pandemic, masks or face coverings were not commonly worn by either passengers or TSA officers.
For the two months from April 14 through June 18, as passenger numbers plummeted and coronavirus precautions were implemented, there were no reported cases among TSA staff assigned to Orlando International Airport.
During at least part of that period, there were as few as four TSA officers at the entrances to the security checkpoints, down from dozens prior to the pandemic.
But the past three weeks have seen a jump in cases, coinciding with a gradual rebound of flights and Orange County’s record-setting pace of positive tests for the coronavirus.
Among TSA officers, a case was reported on June 18, five more were reported on June 23, three on the next day and two on June 25. On each of seven subsequent days there were as many as three new cases. On July 3, there were five cases reported. The most recently reported cases were two on Sunday.
The total number of COVID-19 cases among TSA officers at Orlando’s airport is now 39. Officers testing positive through mid-April have returned to duty.
The 39 cases exceeds the number of cases among TSA officers at busier airports in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and San Francisco.
But the TSA cases at Orlando’s airport trail the 116 at New York’s JFK airport, 69 at the Newark, N.J. airport, 54 at Miami’s airport and 42 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
Fort Lauderdale’s airport has 36 reported cases among TSA personnel.
Several Orlando TSA officers, commenting only if not identified because they were not authorized to speak to media, said safeguards such as masks, gloves, sanitizers and shields were appropriate.
“I’m comfortable with the protection we have,” said one officer, walking through the airport’s food court.
TSA personnel were required in early May to wear “facial protection while at screening checkpoints.”
Many officers then, however, did not wear mask or coverings while not on duty but still in public areas of the airport.
In mid-June, Orange County required masks or face coverings to be worn in all public spaces, including the airport.
That mandate appears to be nearly universally followed at the airport, although occasionally a passenger or small group of passengers passes through the TSA checkpoints without a face covering and without being challenged by authorities.
TSA’s spokewoman, Koshetz, said officers are provided each day with either a surgical mask or a more protective N95 mask. She said most choose a surgical mask as more comfortable for hours of wear.
On two recent mornings, it appeared that about 10 percent of officers were wearing N95 masks and the others were wearing surgical masks.
TSA screening lanes are now extensively equipped with clear-plastic screens. Among other protections, officers who pat down passengers are wearing full-face shields.
“You will also see our officers change gloves if they do a pat down of a passenger,” said Pekoske, the agency’s administrator.
Deborah Hanna, president of the union representing TSA officers at Orlando’s airport, said she is urging the agency to step up even more to regularly and aggressively clean and sanitize security checkpoints and staff break rooms.
Hanna said “that’s always a possibility” that many or most infections among TSA officers are occurring while off duty.
“We have a high-risk environment,” Hanna said.
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