Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Travelers say they weren’t screened at Florida airport
Accounts conflict with promises from DeSantis
Despite an order from the governor, travelers from the New York City area seemed to enter Florida on Wednesday with far less screening for coronavirus than the governor suggested.
“No screening — not getting on or not getting off,” said a Florida resident who was wearing a protective mask as he waited at a desolate baggage carousal at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
The traveler said no one took his temperature and no one asked him any questions.
His remarks appeared to conflict with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ promise to clamp down on people fleeing the NYC area amid the growing coronavirus outbreak there. New York on Wednesday accounted for more than 30,000 cases of the virus, half of the number for the entire U.S.
Desantis said at a new conference Tuesday that local law enforcement and the Florida Department of Health would meet people after they got off planes. Travelers would be expected to isolate themselves for 14 days, he said.
“There’ll be some information taken and I think they’re going to do temperature checks,” he said.
Then Wednesday, DeSantis said: “We actually had the National Guard at the check-in for the flights coming in. … Everyone is getting processed. And that information is going to be shared with the various regions.”
That may not have been the case. Three people who spoke at Fort Lauderdale’s airport said they did not have their temperatures checked. And there was no visible sign that any screening was in place for in-bound passengers they said.
Another passenger, arriving on a Spirit Airlines flight, said he noticed National Guard members but they stood by without doing anything. He said no one took his temperature unless it was without his knowledge.
None of the passengers would give their names, saying they feared repercussions from the public.
Greg Meyer, spokesman for the Broward County Aviation Department, described a screening process that was much less aggressive than DeSantis described.
Passengers traveling from eight New York City areas were given forms to fill out before boarding their flights to Florida, Meyer said.
The forms ask the nature of their visit to Florida, the length of stays, the address where they will stay and contact information.
Meyer said there is a box outside the gates for passengers to put their forms into and then airport employees brought the forms to Department of Health workers as travelers went on their way.
Its unlikely that those boxes are manned to ensure all were complying. Meyer said. “We don’t have the resources to be at every gate,” he said.
He also said the airport does not have the authority to make people turn in their forms. ‘We are not saying to passengers, ‘You must do this.’”
Just above the signature line is a statement that warns of prosecution for all individuals and family members who violate selfisolation or self-quarantine by failing to remain within the confines of the address they provided on the form. Such punishment could include 60 days in jail and a fine up to $500.
A nurse from Boca Raton said she was handed a form to fill out at New York’s JFK Airport before boarding her JetBlue flight home. She did drop it into the box. She said she was told to so someone could come by her house and make sure she was home.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel contacted the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the airline industry, to better understand its role in all this. The agency referred a reporter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as local health authorities.
Three major airlines that serve the airport — Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines — did not respond to questions about their participation either. All three airlines operate daily flights between New York area airports and Florida.
The number of flights from the NYC area has dropped significantly as airlines have reduced service in the face of a major decline of passengers. Meyer said that before the pandemic, 53 flights arrived from the eight airports in the greater NYC area. Tuesday and Wednesday it was down to 36.
“Those numbers may deteriorate more tomorrow,” Meyer said.
As flights arrived Wednesday, a number of passengers wore masks as they waited to collect their luggage. The scant number of passengers made social distancing easy.