--- title: How CDC Will Track Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season description: With holiday travel about to start, CDC is expanding its airport surveillance program beyond COVID-19 to include flu and RSV. canonical: https://time.com/6331503/airport-covid-flu-rsv-tracking/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-11-06T19:01:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:48.029Z article:section: Health og:title: How CDC Will Track Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season og:description: How CDC Is Tracking Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season og:url: https://time.com/6331503/airport-covid-flu-rsv-tracking/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0e79ff428f938ca/698a41f016d88459e7c3c6b9/GettyImages-1398641776.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2184 og:image:height: 1229 og:image:alt: Busy Terminal 2 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How CDC Will Track Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season twitter:description: How CDC Is Tracking Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0e79ff428f938ca/698a41f016d88459e7c3c6b9/GettyImages-1398641776.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here’s How the CDC Will Track Viruses Over the Holiday Travel Season > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Hitting the Snooze Button May Not Be as Bad as You Think [Watch (HLS stream): Hitting the Snooze Button May Not Be as Bad as You Think](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/z2liolYC.m3u8) (3:00)  _Published 2023-11-02. Many sleep experts take a dim view of using the snooze button in the morning. But the science on snoozing isn't conclusive._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Nov 6, 2023 7:01 PM UTC  Airport Terminal signs with rushing commuters Airport Terminal signs with rushing commuters Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Nov 6, 2023 7:01 PM UTC If you’ve traveled overseas recently, you might have been greeted upon your return by people in a handful of airport terminals in the U.S. recruiting passengers to get tested for the [COVID-19 virus](https://time.com/tag/covid-19/). It’s been a surprisingly productive way to keep track of how much COVID-19 might be entering the country, via travelers, as well as which variants they are bringing in. Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, the[ program](https://time.com/6225417/airports-covid-19-variants-us-tracking/)’s operators, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Concentric by Ginkgo Bioworks (a Boston-based biotech firm), and [XpresCheck](https://time.com/5856039/xpresspa-covid-testing/), which recruits and tests the passengers, are expanding the screening to include viruses other than SARS-CoV-2\. Since October, the program has been screening a subset of samples from travelers for influenza and RSV. Eventually, the program will phase in 30 more pathogens. Since the program launched in 2021, the[ Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance (TGS) program](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/travel-genomic-surveillance) has provided a crucial window into how the COVID-19 virus is circulating, especially since more people are relying on [at-home tests](https://time.com/6316682/at-home-tests-covid-19-rsv-flu/) that don’t require them to report results. About 6,000 passengers arriving in seven major international U.S. airports are tested each week on a voluntary basis. They also provide basic, non-identifying information about where their flight originated, and other countries included in their itinerary; and answer questions about their vaccination status, age, and whether they have been in close contact with anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 recently. People will be asked similar questions about flu and RSV. ### More From TIME So far, the program has enrolled more than 360,000 passengers and sequenced more than 14,000 samples and added these data to public genetic databases to help public health officials better understand how and where the virus is circulating. TGS detected the first case of the [variant BA.2.86](https://time.com/6308418/ba-2-86-covid-19-variant-vaccine/) coming into the U.S. in[ August](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7243a3.htm?s%5Fcid=mm7243a3%5Fw%0b), from a traveler arriving at Washington, D.C.’s Dulles airport from Japan, even before that country had detected any cases. It was also the first time that variant had been found outside of Denmark and Israel, where it was first reported. “We’ve had quite a bit of success with the platform,” says. Dr. Cindy Friedman, chief of the Travelers’ Health Branch at CDC. “Travelers can help us to fill in gaps in our global surveillance because they get and spread germs as they travel. They give us an early look at what is coming into the country, and what is going on globally.” Because not all countries have strong infectious disease testing and surveillance programs, TGS is providing valuable information not just about what’s happening in the U.S. but around the world as well. “We’re not waiting for someone to get sick and then go see a health care provider or go to the emergency room,” says Friedman. “We are trying to get the data one step earlier.” Friedman says she and her team are also not depending entirely on the altruism of passengers to submit to nasal swabs as they get off long transcontinental flights. Since launching in 2021, the program also collects and studies samples of [wastewater](https://time.com/6145220/covid-19-wastewater-tracker/) from planes, and wastewater from the common drain into which planes discard their waste. Such collection can provide a more efficient way to track pathogens coming into the country, says Friedman, since “that one sample is representative of 200 to 300 people on that plane.” Friedman says her team is also investigating taking air samples from airports, which could push our knowledge about the global spread of pathogens even further. In the latest iteration of the program, passengers at four airports—John F. Kennedy in New York, San Francisco International, Logan in Boston, and Dulles—volunteer to swab their noses and Ginkgo genetically analyzes any positive tests at its labs for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and RSV. Scientists have just begun screening wastewater for these additional viruses as well. If those sequences show signs of mutations or other changes, they are sent to CDC labs in Atlanta for deeper analysis. As with the original COVID-19 testing, all of the genetic data are uploaded onto public genetic databases so researchers can study them. **_Read more:_** [_There’s a Shortage of RSV Treatments. Here’s What Doctors Recommend_](https://time.com/6330543/rsv-treatment-shortage/) In coming years, the program will add testing for dozens of other viruses and bacteria, as well as for mutations that signal that viruses or bacteria have become resistant to existing treatments. Eventually, Friedman says her team is hoping take air samples from airports to provide additional data on pathogens, and to bolster the program’s ability to know where in the world pathogens are coming from, and whether the strains entering the country pose any threat to public health because existing treatments won’t be able to control them. One group of such pathogens that will eventually be screened include the parainfluenzas, which can contribute to croup or pneumonia, and can be dangerous for young babies. “There are no public genomes for some of these respiratory pathogens—none for parainfluenza 3, for example, and none for human metapneumovirus—so we will be getting the first sequences that we are able to look at more closely,” says Casandra Philipson, a computational biologist at Concentric. “We’re excited about establishing a global baseline dataset for these viruses. The more we make public, the more we can contribute to better general knowledge about these pathogens.” ## Transcript I think people pretty widely assumed that using the snooze button is bad because it sort of carries his kind of Tatian that you are lazy or that you need extra time in bed or for whatever reason, you know, our society is very oriented towards things that happened early in the morning typical work schedule start at 9 that kind of thing and there's a popular perception that is that it's better to be a morning person and I think snoozing kind of goes against that idea There are a couple reasons why people snooze one is that they find it easier to wake up if they have kind of gone back into a half asleep or dozing State and are not waking up, you know. Lee from a deep sleep and the other reason is just that people are really tired and when their alarm goes off, they're not quite ready to get out of bed. One reason that people think snoozing is bad is that you are prematurely pulling yourself out of deep sleep and replacing it with lighter sleep after you go back to sleep. There's some studies and do suggest. That's not that great for you but others find that it can actually be easier to wake up and feel alert. If you are waking up from light sleep instead of deep sleep so it might help with things like morning grogginess or like feeling as though your brain needs time to turn on in the morning if you have snoozed before getting up, Another reason that people think snoozing is not good for you is that it just signifies that you're not getting enough sleep at night and I guess you were so tired that you need to hit the snooze button that kind of suggested that you something's wrong with your sleep. And that might be the case for some people but several studies that I saw suggested that people who snooze don't get less sleep over all and don't get poor quality sleep. So it's not necessarily a signal of a bigger problem. When is the most common sleep tips that I hear in talking to experts is that you should try to go to bed and wake up at pretty much the same time every day because that helps your body kind of get in a rhythm of going to sleep and waking up. Where is if you are going to bed at midnight one night and then 10 the next night and then the next night your body kind of gets confused and doesn't know when it should be sleeping so it can be harder to fall asleep that way. There's no one-size-fits-all like for some people if if your alarm goes off at 7 and you're supposed to get up at 7, but you can't get yourself out of bed until 8, like maybe that is a sign that you didn't get enough sleep the night before that your sleep is poor quality, but for people who just find it a more pleasant way to wake up and it's kind of built into their daily routine from what I could find. 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