11/06/2022
The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention has just announced their decision to lift Covid Testing re-entry requirements for all international travel to the United States.
When will this happen?
• 🗓 The requirement will lift effective Sunday, June 12th at 12:01 a.m. ET. as of the reports released this week
Is this decision final?
• 🔏The CDC will reassess the decision in 90 days and could reinstate it if there were a new COVID variant of concern.
What were the testing requirements previously?
• 🏥 Starting in January of 2021, international travel to the US required a negative PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before your time of departure. In December of 2021, the requirements was updated to a negative rapid test no more than 1 day before your departure.
What does this mean for you?
• For primarily domestic travelers this doesn’t mean much and probably won’t affect you at all. For international travelers though, this decision will likely relieve some of the additional anxiety that traveling during a pandemic creates.
• The re-entry Covid testing requirements were a great idea in theory but in practice they ended up being an extra expense and an extra hassle for U.S. travelers. Practicing proper social distancing and mask wearing would typically ensure a negative result but the anxiety of what if would then be a constant worry leading up to your return flight. And if you unfortunately tested positive, you’d have to quarantine in whichever country you were in regardless of if you had a job or family to get back to.
• Now that both the airport/airline mask mandates have been lifted it will be the responsibility of the individual to keep themselves and their fellow passengers safe by choosing to wear masks in airports and on airlines and continuing to social distance.
How do you feel about the Covid testing re-entry requirements being lifted? Let us know in the comments.
