Americans who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can travel “at low risk to themselves” both in the US and internationally. However, you still need to take precautions such as: B. wearing a mask in public, avoiding crowds, maintaining social distance and washing hands frequently, federal health officials said on Friday.
Vaccinated Americans are not required to have a coronavirus test prior to arriving in another country unless required by destination authorities, and they are not required to be quarantined on their return to the United States unless they are allowed to Requested by local jurisdictions on new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, vaccinated travelers should have a negative coronavirus test result before returning home and be retested three to five days after returning home. The recommendation is based on the idea that people who have been vaccinated may still be infected with the virus.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson or two weeks after receiving the second dose of the two-dose regimen from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.
The new advice complements guidelines issued in early March that allow fully vaccinated individuals to gather in small groups in private settings without masks or social distancing and visit unvaccinated individuals from a single household as long as they are at low risk of developing serious disease, when infected with the virus.
The recommendations issued on Friday do not change the CDC travel guidelines for the unvaccinated. The agency continues to advise against non-essential domestic travel by people who are not fully vaccinated, stating that they should be tested for coronavirus infection one to three days before their trip and again three to five days after their trip is complete, if they have to travel. Unvaccinated travelers should quarantine for seven to ten days if they are not tested after a trip, the agency said.
The CDC guidelines don’t change the fact that many countries, including those in the European Union, still prevent most Americans from coming. Some are starting to make exceptions for those who are vaccinated. Starting March 26, Americans who are fully vaccinated and able to show proof of vaccination will be able to visit Iceland and avoid border measures such as testing and quarantine, according to the country’s government.
Some destinations and cruise lines already require travelers to be fully vaccinated. The Royal Caribbean cruise line requires passengers and crew 18+ to be vaccinated to board their ships, as do Virgin Voyages, Crystal Cruises, and others.
Currently, airlines do not require vaccinations to travel. But the idea has been talked about a lot in the industry.
Air travel bookings have slowly increased as more Americans are vaccinated. But it’s mostly flights to and from small regional vacation airports that are thriving, while large hub airports see only a fraction of the travelers who took them around this time last year. The new CDC guidelines are likely to boost air travel, but it will take 2023 and 2024 to get back to 2019 levels, according to Airlines for America, an industry group.
On Thursday, the Transportation Security Administration reported that more than 1.5 million travelers are going through security checkpoints at airports, with the number of travelers increasing since early to mid-March. While that’s a significant increase compared to the 124,000 people screened a year ago, it’s still 35 percent less than in 2019. On Sunday, the agency screened nearly 1.6 million people at airports.
Almost 1.6 million passengers boarded domestic flights on Sunday, most on every day since the pandemic began.
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