With air travel up, TSA screeners hit hard by coronavirus

More than 1,000 employees at the Transportation Security Administration have tested positive for coronavirus, according to figures the agency released Thursday. Nearly all of them are security officers who have continued to work screening passengers at airports throughout the pandemic.

Hydrick Thomas, president of the union that represents the officers, said the figure is a reflection of the agency’s ongoing struggle to do enough to protect its employees. Air travel numbers, which collapsed in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, are steadily climbing even as the virus is surging again: Nearly 2.7 million people traveled over the July Fourth holiday weekend.

“Right now they’re bringing people back to work and the social distance is not in total effect,” Thomas said. “Employees are still complaining there’s too many of them in one area.”

In all, the TSA says 1,018 employees have tested positive. Its 50,000-strong force of screening officers has borne the brunt, accounting for 907 of the cases. Six employees have died.

The virus spread rapidly among the TSA’s workforce in the spring, forcing officers to stay home to try to limit its spread. The difference then was that air travel had come to an almost complete standstill, with fewer than 100,000 people passing through the agency’s checkpoints on some days, compared to a normal volume of 2 million or more.

The figures released by the TSA show JFK remains the hardest hit airport, with 116 agency employees testing positive.