CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who earlier this week issued an urgent plea to limit travel due to fears of another COVID surge, said Friday that the new guidance is based on studies showing the "real-world'' effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
Vaccinated travelers no longer have to follow the CDC's recommendations to get a COVID-19 test before and after travel unless required by the destination. They still need to wear masks and take other precautions. A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last recommended vaccine dose.
The CDC's Friday announcement does not change one high-profile COVID travel restriction, however. Vaccinated travelers still must abide by a CDC order, issued in January, requiring a negative COVID test to board international flights to the United States, and should get another test three to five days after returning.
The CDC's travel recommendations, which have evolved during the pandemic under the general banner of avoiding nonessential travel and still apply to those who aren't vaccinated, call for getting tested one to three days before a trip, three to five days after a trip and staying home and self-quarantining for seven days after travel, even with a negative test. If unvaccinated travelers don’t get tested, they should stay home and self-quarantine for 10 days after travel.
Those guidelines were still in place for vaccinated travelers when the CDC issued broad guidance for vaccinated Americans in early March.
They are only guidelines, though, and plenty of travelers have boarded planes or taken road trips without the CDC's blessing. In March, passenger counts at U.S. airports topped 1 million a day every day but five, according to the Transportation Security Administration – something that hasn't happened in over a year.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/
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