All air passengers entering US must have negative COVID-19 test, CDC says
Effective Jan. 26, all air passengers entering the United States must have a negative COVID-19 test, the CDC said.
The announcement came amid the emergence of variant strains of SARS-CoV-2 in several countries, including the United Kingdom.
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“Testing does not eliminate all risk, but when combined with a period of staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, it can make travel safer, healthier, and more responsible by reducing spread on planes, in airports and at destinations,” outgoing CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, MD, said in a press release.
Since Dec. 28, the CDC has been requiring air passengers from the U.K. to have a negative test result no more than 3 days before departure. The new policy will require that all passengers have a negative test result within 3 days of departure to the U.S. and that they undergo testing 3 to 5 days following their arrival in the country and quarantine for 7 days.
Paper or electronic documentation of the laboratory test must be provided to the airline, and airlines are required to confirm the negative results for all passengers before boarding. If no documentation is provided or an individual refuses to be tested, the airline is required to deny entry to the passenger.
Perspective
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The new CDC testing policy asking for air passengers from other countries to have a negative test before coming to the U.S. makes sense in some ways and doesn’t make sense in others. This makes sense because variants are arising in other countries (like the B.1.1.7 “U.K. variant”) and we want limit entry of new variants into our country. However, this doesn’t make complete sense in that the U.S. remains the epicenter of the pandemic, so it is unlikely a traveler can actually make our situation worse. Eventually, airlines should probably consider being vaccinated for COVID-19 an adequate “pass” to fly without testing and require testing for those who are not vaccinated until we get to mass vaccination. For now, I think this policy is fine and — although it may not have a major impact on our pandemic in the U.S. — makes biological sense.
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