Passengers pass a sign near a COVID-19 testing site in Terminal E of Logan Airport in Boston on December 21, 2021.
The US government on Friday decided to end a mandate that requires international air travelers traveling to the states to take a COVID test a day before boarding a flight. This was one of the last remaining government mandates to control the COVID situation in the country. A senior administration official said that the mandate will expire at 12 am on Sunday.
The official said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that COVID testing was no longer necessary for international travelers. He further said that the agency will re-evaluate the testing requirement every 90 days and it can be reinstated if a disturbing new variant comes to the fore.
The Biden administration rolled out the testing requirement last year, as it moved away from sanctions that banned non-essential travel from several dozen countries – most of Europe, China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Iran – and Instead it focused on classifying individuals. The risk they pass on to others.
It has come with a requirement that foreign, nonimmigrant adults traveling to the United States need to be fully vaccinated, with only limited exceptions. The initial mandate allowed people who were fully vaccinated to show evidence of a negative test within three days of travel, while unvaccinated people were to submit a test taken within one day of travel.
In November, as the highly permeable Omicron variant swept around the world, the Biden administration tightened the requirement and required all travelers, regardless of vaccination status, to be tested within a day of travel to the US. Airline and tourism groups have been pressing the administration for months, insisting on eliminating the need for testing, saying it is discouraging people from booking international trips.
Many other countries have removed their testing requirements for vaccination altogether and slightly increased travellers to increase tourism. In February, the groups argued that the need for testing was obsolete because every state already had high numbers of omicron cases, high vaccination rates and new treatments for the virus.
(with inputs from AP)
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