Entering any building, space or country now requires a full health screen to prove you’re not carrying any infectious disease.
Those old enough to have flown before Sept.10, 2001, will recall moseying up to the check-in counter 30 minutes before takeoff, the cursory look in your carry-on by a half-asleep security guard and the casual “howdy” with the pilot as you were welcomed aboard.
Soon after, little old ladies were forced to stand up from their wheelchairs and be patted down, children’s stuffed animals were put through X-ray scanners, and pilots were locked away behind impregnable steel doors.
In short order, following the terrible events of 9/11, a security infrastructure was built to ensure such terrorist attacks never happened again. Within weeks, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) was established in the U.S. (and variations of such around the world), and overnight, the flying experience was utterly changed. Now, each and every one of us is regarded as a threat. Now, each and every one of us is treated the same – saint and sinner alike. Now, each and every one of us is safe – few terrorist attacks have happened since – but we have all suffered from what little joy there was in flying eroding further away.
By 2023, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Health Security Agency (HSA) had ramped up, with a budget that made the TSA’s $7.7 billion look like chicken feed.
To enter any building or space (not just a plane) or country, people were required by law to have a Star Trek-like “tricorder” scan and be turned away if they fail. The “OK2GO” clearance system was initially deployed in high-traffic areas but eventually spread into every county of every state in the country. At first, HSA staff administered the scan, but in another couple of years, the entire process was automated – the scanning equipment became ubiquitous in the air-lock lobby of every building. Including domestic buildings.
As with TSA-Pre, a pre-approval system was instituted for those who enroll in the home-based telemedicine “OK2GO+.” This allowed people to take the scan at home up to four hours before their travel time, certifying they’re not carrying any infectious disease.
The creation of the HSA in the U.S. was a huge money spinner. Contracts to develop and produce the tricorder ran into the tens of billions of dollars. The diagnostic capability and its ongoing maintenance (updating the tests for new and emerging viruses) was a generational goldmine. Hundreds of thousands of staff were hired. The HSA model was mirrored in most other countries in the world.
As with flying, the inconveniences of this new situation are significant but unavoidable. If you’ve got a boss who’s a stickler for you being at your desk by 8:00 AM, you have to plan on arriving at your office building’s air-lock by 7:30. If you’re feeling a little under the weather and aren’t enrolled in OK2GO+, there’s the risk of being turned away.
In the evenings and on weekends, if you go to a show or football game, the lines are long and slow-moving – social distancing means a 1,000-person-line covering a quarter of a mile. Many grumble; some push and shove. But, knowing what we know in the wake of COVID-19, there’s little sympathy for those who think the HSA (and its sister agencies in other countries) is “overkill.”
The HSA infrastructure is a vital element of stopping the coronavirus panic of 2020 from ever happening again. The world cannot live hostage to communicable disease, known and unknown. If we could go back to the easy days of August 2001 and treat flying like taking a bus, of course we would. But we know we can’t. In summer and fall of 2020, the HSA’s “iron curtain” descended – we may not see it lift in our lifetime.
