More than 130 Transportation Security Administration agents at California airports have come down with COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March, an agency count shows, and more than half of those cases have occurred at Los Angeles International Airport.
The count, updated regularly on the Transportation Security Administration website, showed 73 cases at LAX as of Nov. 3.
Authorities face a growing challenge in keeping TSA agents and travelers infection-free as the the nationwide case load increases, Americans begin to fly more often and holidays approach, experts said. Airports in Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas/Fort Worth; Newark, N.J.; Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla.; and New York (JFK) have recorded more TSA COVID cases than LAX.
“The risk to the officers is increasing,” said Dr. David O. Freedman, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and founder the university’s Travelers Health Clinic. Moreover, “the more officers that are infected, the more passengers that can get infected.”
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