ATLANTA — As lawmakers continue talks to end the partial government shutdown, some key federal employees assigned to Atlanta's airport are being furloughed, and that could lead to a serious health risk.
The workers identify passengers coming in with highly contagious diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has what it calls quarantine stations at 20 U.S. airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson.
With planes coming in from all over the world every day, fallout from the federal shutdown is already having a little-known but potentially very serious effect on hundreds of thousands of travelers.
Traveler April Ely is one of several Hartsfield-Jackson passengers who told Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant they had no idea the airport is home to a CDC quarantine station.
Its staff of doctors and public health experts normally work round the clock to identify passengers coming in with potentially life-threatening, highly contagious diseases and keep them from spreading.
"I'm always worried. Always worried about somebody coughing on a flight. I just got back from Bermuda, and I was concerned about," Ely said.
But Diamant confirmed the federal shutdown has forced the CDC to cut the Atlanta airport station's staff from five to just one.
"It will compromise our ability to respond as quickly as we need to," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said by phone.
Skinner said the agency has stopped doing on-camera interviews. But by phone he explained the most significant impact is slower reaction times to super-sick passengers.
"The work to contact other passengers on that plane that may have been exposed to that person needs to start immediately to be the most effective," Skinner said.
That leaves moms like Kristi Boles concerned that the slower the CDC responds, the slower she could respond.
"Certainly, if anything became more acute, whether its influenza or something more serious than that, the quicker people are notified, the quicker they can get medical treatment," Boles said.
WSBTV
