It’s Time for This Testing Malarkey To Go

Next month, I'll be heading home to the USA for the first time since the COVID crisis began.

And I'm pretty fired up.

Long overdue get-togethers with friends and family, barbecue, Buffalo wings, July 4th fireworks, Mexican food, outdoor concerts and warm summer nights filled with the soothing sounds of chirping crickets and condensation-kissed cans being cracked open all await.

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Unfortunately, there is something else waiting for me before I get on that flight at Heathrow to head stateside: a COVID test.

Despite scores of countries around the world (a list that includes names like France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom) ending pre-arrival testing and endless pleading by the travel industry, the United States currently still requires a negative COVID test to arrive by airplane, regardless of your vaccination status—or nationality.

And yes, you read that last line right; there's no need to take a test if you drive across the US border or cruise in on a ship.

It's high time this policy went the way of the buffalo.

It's costing way too much money; it’s handcuffing the travel industry’s recovery, and well, just seems pretty darn pointless.

Okay, so this is the time when we pause for a special word from the author where I make clear that I am not pro-COVID or against all regulations meant to tamper down the spread of the virus. I'm fully vaccinated (boosted too!) and plenty happy to wear a mask whenever somebody asks me to.

But I am for policies that make sense, and this one just doesn't seem to make much at all.

Mainly, if there are no testing requirements or rules governing daily life in America, why do I need to prove I don't have COVID to enter the country?

Do you see my logic here? If the United States was currently in some sort of lockdown, I could understand. But like day-to-day life here in the UK, haven't things pretty much returned to normal? So, if I don't need to prove I don't have COVID to go to a movie, a sporting event or even to fly domestically in the US, why in the world should I need to show a negative test to fly in from abroad? The virus is everywhere and has been for a couple of years now, so what makes inbound air travel so special that it needs these extra rules?

Has COVID been shown to be more contagious over an ocean?

Is it a clever plan by the "Big Testing" fat cats?

Or, is this just yet another in a long line of random, knee-jerk policies that have been put in place by both administrations—and governments all over the world, for that matter—that have demonized certain countries, international travel and travelers alike since March 2020.

I have no doubt that whoever put this policy into place did so with the best of intentions, but like I already said, if the country you are trying to "protect" from COVID by making arriving air passengers test negative does not have a bunch of testing requirements governing daily life, your policy is without a point.

Now, I'm going to do my best not to test positive before my flight, but if I do, at least I can just go home. But imagine being on a 10-day trip abroad and testing positive before your flight back to the US and then having to pay for a hotel or rental apartment until you test negative and are allowed to come home.

Do you think the fear of potentially facing a financially-draining fiasco like that is helping to keep outbound international travel by Americans at crazy-low levels? You bet.

Listen, we know that COVID vaccines have saved countless lives. So why not just put all this time and energy into getting vaccination numbers way up and trying to reduce the pre-existing conditions that make people more susceptible to the virus instead of pestering travelers to prove they don't have COVID before flying and wasting airline employees' time checking up on it?

I'd gladly pay an extra couple of bucks on my airline ticket if the money went towards vaccination efforts in the nation I was flying into.

Okay, rant over. See you soon, USA.