TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ re A

THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

BY JEFF STEIN,

LENA H. SUN

AND LORI ARATANI

U.S. officials are pressuring air-
line executives to turn over the
email addresses and phone num-
bers of international passengers
as the Trump administration tries
to track who may have been ex-
posed to the coronavirus, accord-
ing to five people briefed on the
situation.
Government officials have said
they need the data so they can
warn local authorities about who
might have been exposed to the
virus. But the airline industry has
balked, saying the federal govern-
ment should instead share infor-
mation it already collects among
different agencies and come up
with a system for obtaining the
rest.
The impasse has dragged on
for weeks despite concerns about
the growing number of people
with coronavirus in the United
States. It has become a top issue
of the Trump administration’s vi-
rus task force and U.S. lawmak-
ers. Airline executives are slated
to meet with Vice President Pence
on Wednesday.
The airline industry has
pushed Congress to intervene,
with some lobbyists asking law-
makers to insert a provision in an
emergency spending package
that would effectively absolve the
airlines of having to track some of
the data.
A failure to resolve the issue
could complicate the govern-
ment’s efforts to contain the out-
break’s spread. United Airlines,
Delta Air Lines and American
Airlines deferred questions to
Airlines for America, a lobbying
group that represents the airline
industry. Airlines for America
said collecting the data shouldn’t
be the airlines’ job since the gov-
ernment already has much of it in
existing databases. They also said

it would take as long as a year for

the airlines to set up a tracking

system.

The battle over the data has

taken on new urgency in recent

days.

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention is asking air-

lines to collect and — when or-

dered — submit data from pas-

sengers on select international

flights within 24 hours in an

electronic format. That data

might include an email, a phone

number and an address in the

United States. In the event a

passenger on a flight develops

covid-19, the disease caused by

the coronavirus, that information

would enable health officials to

reach others who may have been

exposed, a system known as “con-

tact tracing.” On Feb. 7, the De-

partment of Health and Human

Services issued an interim rule

requiring certain passenger data

to be shared with federal officials.

“Contact tracing is effective at

reducing cases of communicable

disease at the early stages of a

potential outbreak if the contacts

are notified as soon after initial

exposure as possible,” the CDC

said when it announced the Feb. 7

policy. “If an efficient contact

system is not in place when the

first ill passengers arrive, the ben-

efits of the contact tracing are

greatly diminished.”

The CDC has growing concerns

about getting the information it

needs for its contact tracing pro-

gram, saying that under current

regulations, it can take nearly two

weeks to obtain the traveler data.

Even then, some of the informa-

tion is incomplete.

The passenger data issue has

raised alarms at meetings of the

U.S. coronavirus task force, ac-

cording to an official at the De-

partment of Health and Human

Services, who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity to talk candidly

about internal meetings. Ken

Cuccinelli, acting deputy secre-

tary of homeland security, also

flagged the issue during internal

administration meetings Satur-

day, according to another official

familiar with the discussions.

Officials say there is greater

urgency given the Trump admin-

istration’s new travel restrictions

affecting Iran, Italy and South

Korea. With cases emerging in

recent days in Washington state,

Oregon, Rhode Island, Florida

and New York, the federal govern-

ment and the airline industry

face enormous pressure to put in

place a tracking system amid

fears of the coronavirus’s spread.

“When the goal is contain-

ment, timing is of the essence,”

said Josh Michaud, associate di-

rector for global health policy at

the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The earlier you are able to find

these people, get them into test-

ing and, if needed, quarantine,

the more likely you are to prevent

future spreading.”

In the three weeks since HHS’s

rule was put into effect, airlines

have turned over some informa-

tion, but it has been “incomplete,”

according to the HHS official. U.S.

officials want to know who was

traveling on planes that were

later determined to be transport-

ing passengers who had the coro-

navirus. For example, if a passen-

ger on a flight from Italy two

weeks ago tested positive for the

virus last week, CDC officials

want to track down fellow pas-

sengers on that flight to monitor

their health and determine who

else might have been exposed.

Right now, when a plane from

China lands in the United States,

U.S. citizens who are not sick and

not showing symptoms are given

instructions at the airport to

monitor themselves for symp-

toms, such as fever, cough or

difficulty breathing. After they

reach their final destination, they

are supposed to stay home and

monitor their health for 14 days

from the time they left China. If

they develop symptoms, they are

supposed to contact their health-

care providers and their local

public health authorities.

The CDC wants passenger data

from the airlines so the agency

can pass it on to states and coun-

ties, allowing those front-line au-

thorities to “call in and check in

on” those individuals to make

sure they are not sick, the official

said. CDC officials regard this

basic information as critical to

efforts to control the spread of the

virus.

The airlines have been warning

the government at least since the

beginning of February that they

lack the capacity to quickly set up

a tracking system, said Nicholas

E. Calio, CEO of Airlines for

America. Creating the system

could take a year or longer, Calio

said, and airlines often do not

have the necessary passenger in-

formation available to them if

flights were booked with a third

party.

Most of the airlines’ current

systems would have to be repro-

grammed to collect additional

data, and the airlines contend

that they have no way of verifying

that the information they receive

is accurate.

“We have some of the informa-

tion, but we don’t have all of it,”

said Sharon Pinkerton, senior

vice president for legislative and

regulatory policy at Airlines for

America.

In a letter to HHS, Calio wrote

that roughly 74 percent of all

passengers list a phone number

and 56 percent list an email ad-

dress in the “passenger name

record,” a type of government

database that tracks travelers.

Calio also said that the airline

industry was willing to work with

the federal government to ad-

dress any gaps.

Airline companies have asked

Congress to require HHS to cre-

ate a portal that sends passenger

information to the CDC, accord-

ing to a memo sent by industry

lobbyists to lawmakers and de-

scribed to The Washington Post.

Such a legislative measure

would effectively absolve the air-

lines of having to track and send

the information to the CDC, but it

is unlikely to be approved when

Congress takes up the broader

emergency package this week,

according to two congressional

aides who spoke on the condition

of anonymity to describe fast-

moving negotiations. Calio said

the airlines are willing to pay to

develop an online database in

which travelers directly provide

their information to the CDC.

Lawmakers are hoping to re-

solve the impasse quickly. In ad-

dition to the meeting between

airline executives and Pence, air-

line lobbyists are also expected to

meet this week with members of

the Senate Committee on Com-

merce, Science and Transporta-

tion, including Sen. Te d Cruz (R-

Te x.), who chairs the panel’s sub-

committee on aviation and space.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Airlines, U.S. o∞cials argue over passenger information

Agencies seek data

for those who may have

been exposed to virus

SPencer PlATT/Agence FrAnce-PreSSe/geTTy ImAgeS

Major U.S. airlines say it isn’t their job to collect contact information from international travelers, as

U.S. officials have requested, since much of that information is already in government databases.

“We have some of the

information, but we

don’t have all of it.”

Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice

president at Airlines for America

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