Test to return to the US by air will be dropped
As coronavirus policies and masking rules around the world faded away in recent months, one major mandate remained in place: Travelers flying to the United States had to provide a negative test result before boarding their plane. As of Sunday morning, that, too, will be gone. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it was going to lift the requirement on Sunday at 12:01 a.m. after officials determined that the widespread adoption of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 no longer make it necessary. In an agency release explaining her decision, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director, also cited booster shots and the milder Omicron variant, which she said had “generally caused less severe disease among those who are infected.” The decision was met with joy in the travel industry, which for months has been lobbying the administration hard to get rid of the testing rule. “It’s a Friday miracle,” said Marc Casto, chairman of the board of the American Society of Travel Advisors, a trade group. “It’s huge. It’s monumental.” The hard-hit travel industry is already in the middle of a comeback, but Casto said he believed dropping the mandate would lead to double-digit percentage increases in the number of people flying and staying in hotels abroad. American travelers had held off on overseas vacation plans because of the mandate, worried that they would be stuck in foreign countries if they discovered they were infected and would be forced to pay thousands of dollars in hotel fees and other expenses, he said. Conversely, international travelers to the United States faced the uncertainty of testing positive before their trips began. (International travelers to the United States will still be required to be fully vaccinated.)<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-06-13/general/test-to-return-to-the-us-by-air-will-be-dropped
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
Test to return to the US by air will be dropped
As coronavirus policies and masking rules around the world faded away in recent months, one major mandate remained in place: Travelers flying to the United States had to provide a negative test result before boarding their plane. As of Sunday morning, that, too, will be gone. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it was going to lift the requirement on Sunday at 12:01 a.m. after officials determined that the widespread adoption of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 no longer make it necessary. In an agency release explaining her decision, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director, also cited booster shots and the milder Omicron variant, which she said had “generally caused less severe disease among those who are infected.” The decision was met with joy in the travel industry, which for months has been lobbying the administration hard to get rid of the testing rule. “It’s a Friday miracle,” said Marc Casto, chairman of the board of the American Society of Travel Advisors, a trade group. “It’s huge. It’s monumental.” The hard-hit travel industry is already in the middle of a comeback, but Casto said he believed dropping the mandate would lead to double-digit percentage increases in the number of people flying and staying in hotels abroad. American travelers had held off on overseas vacation plans because of the mandate, worried that they would be stuck in foreign countries if they discovered they were infected and would be forced to pay thousands of dollars in hotel fees and other expenses, he said. Conversely, international travelers to the United States faced the uncertainty of testing positive before their trips began. (International travelers to the United States will still be required to be fully vaccinated.)<br/>
