As countries, including Canada and Britain, have lifted their COVID-19 testing requirements for vaccinated visitors in recent months, some Americans are irate that they still have to show a negative test to board a flight back to the United States.
FILE - A passenger with a face mask waits for his flight at the airport in Duesseldorf, Germany, Thursday, March 19, 2020. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said Wednesday that from next week onward it is no longer recommending the use of medical masks at airports and on planes due to the coronavirus.
The obligatory test has not just created logistical hassles, it has fundamentally shifted the experience of traveling internationally, travelers say. “It certainly prevented people who tested positive from getting on planes, and it almost certainly prevented some amount of transmission on aircraft and in airports,” he said.
If success was not preventing the arrival of new variants, but instead delaying their arrival so that hospitals and authorities could be more prepared, then it may have worked. Mark Jit, a professor of vaccine epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who has studied the effectiveness of travel requirements, said that this is what testing does well.Still, once a variant is already widespread in a country, he found, a travel test has little effect.
The testing requirement is not just annoying for travelers, it’s economically damaging, according to the U.S. Travel Association, a trade group. In a recent letter to Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 coordinator, signed by more than 260 businesses, including airlines, cruise operators, casinos, tourism boards, Disney Parks and a zoo, the group said “the economic costs associated with maintaining the measure are significant.
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