Customs agencies are still not properly screening travelers arriving in the US from coronavirus hot-spot countries Italy, Iran and South Korea, with scores of passengers saying they're able to saunter through major airports like JFK and LAX.

On March 1, President Trump vowed that anyone returning from 'high risk countries' would be screened both before they boarded planes and once they had returned to the US.

On Monday, Vice President Pence said: 'Anyone traveling on a direct flight to the United States of America receives multiple screenings at all airports in Italy and South Korea.'

But the CDC is only insisting on screening passengers who arrive in the country from China and Iran.

As the death toll in the US reached 14 on Friday, many travelers took to Twitter to share stories about returning to America from the high risk countries with minimal to no screening.

Many said the only question they were asked was if they had traveled recently to China.

In addition to fears over how flights are being screened, there is growing criticism of the federal government's response to testing.

Some passengers are reporting being able to walk through customs without being screened after returning from hot spot corona-virus countries. Above, a passenger arriving at JFK from a flight from China earlier this week

As the death toll in the US reached 14 on Friday, many travelers took to Twitter to share stories about returning to America from the high risk countries with minimal to no screening

The FDA is yet to approve a test that would be able to tell a person if they had the virus or not within 15 minutes.

It is a US test that has been developed by a private company and is already being used in Japan, but is yet to pass grade here.

A Vice News journalist said she was able to walk through customs at JFK without being questioned despite having traveled to Milan and Lombardy - the center of the outbreak in Italy - to report on it.

'I just landed at JFK after reporting on #coronavirus in Milan and Lombardy —the epicenter of Italy’s outbreak— for Vice News. I walked right through US customs.

'They didn’t ask me where in Italy I went or if I came into contact with sick people. They didn’t ask me anything,' she said.

She added that she was now following CDC guidelines, which dictate that anyone who has just returned from Italy must stay home for 14 days.

On Friday morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House coronavirus expert, said what was being reported about screening in airports was not what was meant to be happening.

'I don't know hat happened there but that does not sound like it's the way it should have been,' he said, referring to the Vice journalist who was able to arrive back from Milan without questions or screening.

Passengers from China and Iran are being screened, but the CDC is still insisting on others on flights from Italy, South Korea and Japan being tested before they get on planes - and it's unclear if that is happening

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's expert on the disease , said people from flights from northern Italy ought to be being tested

15-minute coronavirus test being used in China, Italy and Japan – but NOT the UK or US because health officials haven't approved it yet A 15-minute coronavirus blood test is not being used in the UK, despite China, Italy and Japan diagnosing patients with it. The test, which takes a blood droplet from a finger prick, allegedly shows the severity of coronavirus infection in a patient even if they don't show symptoms. Results are displayed in a similar fashion to those of an at-home pregnancy test within minutes and could potentially save delays in diagnosis. Currently, swab tests used by Public Health England take 24 to 48 hours to be read by a specialist in a lab. In that time, suspected patients could be spreading germs to other people. BioMedomics claims its test can screen for coronavirus in 15 minutes using a small drop of blood and a tiny device that can be carried into the field PHE confirmed they were not using the advanced blood test because it was not accurate enough, and are hoping to develop their own. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also yet to approve it. A former PHE strategist said he was 'not confident' the test could produce correct results and is therefore unlikely to be rolled out. However, the method was desirable. A small study by Biomedomics showed the test produced a correct response 80 per cent of the time. On March 5, BioMedomics claimed its 'quick and easy' test was ready and being used in South Korea, Japan, Italy, China and some countries in the Middle East. The BioMedomics test - called COVID-19 IgM/IgG Rapid Test - takes a human finger-prick or venous blood sample. It can be read similarly to a pregnancy test, with one line for a negative test, two signifying it's positive for either early or late antibodies, and three when the sample is positive for both A blood sample is collected, inserted into the reader, a buffer is combined, and results come back within 15 minutes, the company claims After the sample of blood is collected, a technician injects it into the analysis device - which is about the size of an Apple TV or Roku remote - along with some buffer, and waits 15 minutes. Results are displayed in a similar fashion to those of an at-home pregnancy test. But instead of a 'yes' or 'no' answer, it can reveal at what stage of disease the infected person is at. One line means negative, two lines in a spread-out configuration means the sample contains antibodies that the body starts making shortly after infection Two lines closer together mean the person is positive for the later-stage antibodies, and three lines mean the patient is positive for both types of antibodies. Advertisement

Trump said on Sunday that passengers would be screened if they arrive back from high risk countries

'Well obviously, first of all, the flights that come in from Northern Italy need to get screened. Particularly, flights from northern Italy are very tightly screened,' he added.

But the CDC has not mandated for people from Italy, South Korea or Japan to be checked once they land back in the US.

Instead, they are relying on passengers being checked in the departure country.

Passengers arriving back in Atlanta from South Korea and Italy are not being screened, nor are passengers at Chicago O'Hare Airport. according to NBC and CBS.

JFK pointed to a travel advisory which said she should have had her temperature checked in Italy, where no one will be able to board with a temperature of 99 degrees or more.

But it's unclear whether people's temperatures are being taken before they get on the flights, or even how effective it would be. One group of friends recently returned from a ski trip in Italy to the US and 15 of them now have the virus.

Not all of them have symptoms.

Others said they were able to enter the country from Iran without being questioned or having their temperature checked.

There are now 267 confirmed cases of the virus in the US, including 14 people who have died

'My mom’s friend just came back from Iran. At LAX she asked if she needed to be tested for corona virus. They asked her if she had a fever. She said no.

'So they let her pass through. Hearing many other similar stories about people coming from Iran,' Arash Karami said.

The CDC has not included Japan on its list of high risk countries, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has.

On Thursday, he asked all New Yorkers who had returned 'recently' from one of the five countries to self-quarantine as a precaution.

But it remains unclear how he or anyone else in federal government intends to enforce such self-quarantine.

It is also unclear what lengths customs agents are going to to determine whether or not people arriving back from China and Iran actually have the virus.

On Thursday, a health official who joined de Blasio at a press conference about the issue said passengers were being issued information pamphlets with a phone number on it that they should call if they start experiencing symptoms.

The official said no one had yet called.

On its website, the CDC says it has banned any foreign national who is coming to the US on flights from Iran or China.

A US citizen, lawful resident and their families will be 'redirected to one of 11 airports to undergo health screening.'

'Depending on their health and travel history, they will have some level of restrictions on their movements for 14 days from the time they left China or Iran,' the guidance says.

It is unknown just how many flights are still arriving in the US from China and Iran every day, let alone from Italy, South Korea and Japan.

WHAT IS TAKING THE US SO LONG TO TEST PATIENTS FOR CORONAVIRUS?

Within days of shipping its tests, several states reported that the CDC's diagnostic was returning 'inconclusive' results. The agency was forced to re-make one of the test components are reissue kits.

Even since the CDC started to address this issue, delays have continued.

US officials previously promised a million tests could be run by the end of this week, but Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar admitted 'we currently have capacity to send tests for 15,000 people' on Thursday.

Vice President Pence reiterated the woe of US doctors Thursday, but said that the US has tested the patients it absolutely needs to.

'We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,' he admitted after a meeting with 3M, which is expected to help ramp up mask production.

'For those that we believe have been exposed, for those who are showing symptoms, we’ve been able to provide the testing.

The US coronavirus task force promised Monday that, by the end of the week, about a million coronavirus tests would be available.

Now, it's clear that goal won't be nearly met.

Secretary Azar explained Thursday the three steps that stand in the way to broader, faster testing.

He said that even when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself developed a test, it had to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before distributing it.

That request was submitted February 3 and approved February 4.

The CDC didn't start shipping its first batch of tests until February 6.

Shortly after those tests arrived to labs, it was discovered a reagent was flawed, forcing the CDC to reissue the test.

Right now, doctors have to call in to one of just over 70 labs in the US, describe the patient they suspect may have coronavirus, get approval for a test to be sent to them, then test the patient, and send the kit back to one of those 70 labs.

On Saturday, the FDA gave approval for other states, companies and research institutions to make their own coronavirus tests to expedite increase the number of people who can be tested.

CDC's own manufacturer, IDT, is ramping up production, and Azar thinks that they'll distribute enough kits to test about 75,000 people for the virus.

With the addition of outside tests, Azar estimated that enough tests will be sent out to screen about 400,000 people - because two of the nearly one million tests to be shipped have to be used to test each patient under current guidelines.

He thinks that will happen by the end of the weekend.

But even then, it could be 'a week, a week-and-a-half, two weeks' before they are 'up and running.'

Data to allow the CDC to 'validate' the tests has to be sent within 15 days of when these labs started administering them.

So far, University of Washington scientists have begun using their own test, and is running samples 24-hours a day.

They believe they'll soon be processing some 1,000 samples each day.

New York state - where at least 22 people now have coronavirus - as well as partner labs at Northwell Health and Stonybrook are now working on their own test, as well. New York was the first state to get authorization to start distributing its test.

Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has quickly created an entire public testing lab network across the US to help the state - where so far four positive tests have been confirmed - to help expedite the process.

He said so far half of the labs spread across 10 US cities are functional and ready to begin testing.