The plane is boarding, where are your test results?

Frequent testing, combined with vaccines and masking, has been repeatedly cited as the key to a holiday season closer to the “normal” of prepandemic times. But for international travelers who need tests to enter their destinations, getting tested in time is easier said than done. Finding a test has become increasingly difficult — appointments are booked and walk-in sites often have hourslong waits. And even if you can get a test, it is far from guaranteed that your results will come back in time for you to board. Making it even more difficult are the ever-changing requirements for international travel, with the testing deadlines often a moving target. In recent weeks, some places have shortened the window for valid test results, including the Cayman Islands — previously, a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours was sufficient for entry. Testing has been a repeated pain point throughout the pandemic, from the limited availability and turnaround times that could stretch as long as a week in the spring of 2020 to the shortage of at-home tests during the Delta surge last summer. But the one-two punch of the highly contagious Omicron variant and the holiday season has led to a huge demand for tests that the United States was, by and large, not prepared to meet. For some travelers, that means that the best-laid plans, and even backup plans, may fall through. “We have as much test volume now as we did in the large wave that we saw last holiday season,” said Alicia Zhou, the chief science officer of Color, a Burlingame, Calif., health technology company that has partnered with organizations across the country to provide large-scale testing and vaccination programs. <br/>