US removes Covid test requirement for international air travellers

The Biden administration is lifting its requirement that international travelers test negative for Covid-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States, ending one of the last remaining government mandates designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday that the requirement will end early on Sunday morning. The health agency said it will continue to monitor the state of the pandemic and will reassess the need for a testing requirement if the situation changes.

“This step is possible because of the progress we’ve made in our fight against Covid-19,” said US Health Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Roger Dow, president of the US Travel Association, called lifting the testing rule “another huge step forward for the recovery of inbound air travel and the return of international travel to the United States.”

Airlines argued that the rule was put into effect when few Americans were vaccinated — now 71 percent of those 5 and older are fully vaccinated, according to CDC figures. They also complained that people entering the US at land borders are not required to test negative for Covid-19, although they must show proof of vaccination.

While domestic US travel has returned nearly to pre-pandemic levels, international travel — which is very lucrative for the airlines — has continued to lag. In May, US international air travel remained 24 percent below 2019 levels, with declines among both US and foreign citizens, according to trade group Airlines for America.

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Was it beneficial?

Many other countries have lifted their testing requirements for fully vaccinated and boosted travelers in a bid to increase tourism.

Some infectious-disease experts said they were comfortable with the CDC’s decision, and that lifting the restriction is unlikely to cause further spread of the virus in the US.

Dr William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University said the rule was designed to prevent importing the virus, “but we’ve got plenty of Covid here. It’s like telling someone not to pour a bucket of water in their swimming pool.”

Dr Peter Chin-Hong at the University of California, San Francisco, said travel restrictions demonstrate that officials are trying to keep variants out, "but they haven't really shown to be beneficial, ever." However, he said, requiring foreign visitors to be vaccinated makes sense to avoid straining the US healthcare system with people who could develop severe disease.

The requirement for a negative Covid-19 test before flying to the US dates to January 2021 and is the most visible remaining US travel restriction of the pandemic era.

In April, a federal judge in Florida struck down a requirement that passengers wear masks on planes and public transportation, saying that the CDC had exceeded its authority. The Biden administration is appealing that ruling, saying it aims to protect the CDC's ability to respond to future health emergencies.

The Biden administration put the testing requirement in place as it moved away from rules that banned nonessential travel from dozens of countries — most of Europe, China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Iran — and focused instead on classifying individuals by the risk they pose to others. It was coupled with a requirement that foreign, non-immigrant adults traveling to the United States need to be fully vaccinated, with only limited exceptions.

The initial mandate allowed those who were fully vaccinated to show proof of a negative test within three days of travel, while unvaccinated people had to present a test taken within one day of travel.

In November, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant swept the world, the Biden administration toughened the requirement and required all travelers — regardless of vaccination status — to test negative within a day of travel to the US

In February, travel groups argued that the testing requirement was obsolete because of the high number of omicron cases already in every state, higher vaccination rates and new treatments for the virus.

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